


Guard the Pounding Sound

by droid_girl



Series: Roads Untravelled [1]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Bromance, Companionable Snark, Explicit Language, F/M, Psychological Trauma, Sex, Slow Build, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-09-01
Packaged: 2018-12-14 07:51:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 39,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11778654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/droid_girl/pseuds/droid_girl
Summary: “It would only be right if I returned to you Oathkeeper, as you are once again, looking to fulfill your promise to Catelyn Stark,”Fanfiction based solely on the TV show, and not ASOIAF. This is a deviation starting from the episode Oathkeeper (4x04). What if Jaime Lannister had left with Brienne to seek Sansa Stark?A story of Jaime finding his redemption, regaining his honour and his clarity, and finding a new mission.It's Sansa/Jaime romance eventually.





	1. Pulling

**Author's Note:**

> Cards on the table: I don't know what I'm doing. I am in awe of people who write great GoT fan fiction (which shockingly exist!) because this is a hard fandom to write for, given the fact that GRRM has basically created an entire universe, with tons of characters and subplots. 
> 
> To summarise, I don't know what I'm doing, and might abandon this project at any time.
> 
> Also, I know jack about medieval facts. Or how to write hard fantasy. Urban fantasy, sure.
> 
> Warning: First few chapters is Jaime character introspection heavy and this is NOT a fast paced story...
> 
> Omg, I'm just babbling now.

At the last moment, as her horse began the long journey, Jaime found himself saying hoarsely in a voice he scarcely recognized as his own,

“Wait,”

The wench reined in her horse and turned back to him, large eyes filling with a burgeoning hope that flared to life as she studied his expression closely.

“Wait.”

***  
And so it was that Jaime Lannister found himself riding past the city gates once again, a sword hanging on his right hip, while his golden hand rested on his thigh. Beside him, cantered a quizzical squire and a much cheered Lady of Tarth.

***  
It was almost mesmerizing, Jaime thought, watching Podrick try and fail to provide any sort of comfort to himself or Brienne.

As they sat on a log, watching the young man gathering what appeared to be damp twigs for a fire, the wench finally started to ask,

“Why did you…”

“I don’t know,” he cut her off, brutally quelling the panic and anger that threatened to rise in his chest. “I cannot guess at my own reasons for setting off on this fool’s errand.”

Jaime’s eyes slid shut as he silently sifted through the implications his impulsive actions would beget. For one thing, on top of already being an Oathbreaker, he was furthermore, now a deserter of the Kingsguard. He had abandoned his brother to what was almost certainly, death or worse. He had, by leaving his post, brought more shame upon his house – undoubtedly, Tywin Lannister would be livid by now. 

It was a battle to keep himself from shuddering at the imagined weight of his father’s furious stare, no less intimidating even now that he was a grown man.

Most of all, he thought of Cersei, already grieving the death of her son. He thought of her green eyes, brimming with unshed tears as she clutched desperately at the tattered parchment he had left behind, reading and re-reading his sloppily scrawled words. He pictured her reeling from his newest betrayal, for surely she would not see his decision as anything but a betrayal. In his mind’s eye, he saw her slender, elegant hands pitching the note into the flames of her hearth with a scream of rage and anguish.

Brienne observed him carefully, weighing her own thoughts. Standing up, she drew her sword from its sheath and with both hands, held out the blade he had only just given her. 

“It would only be right if I returned to you Oathkeeper, as you are once again, looking to fulfill your promise to Catelyn Stark,” 

A bitter laugh burst out of the Kingslayer as his eyes snapped open to stare at the ornately carved pommel before him, burnished gold that so matched his useless hand. 

“What use is a sword to a cripple?” he demanded through gritted teeth after his laughter had finally subsided. 

“You’ve lost one hand. Not both,” Brienne lifted her chin almost defiantly, a small frown etched into her forehead. “You still have your senses, Jaime,”

“I’ve lost my sword arm,” he scrambled up, a sharp stab of anger lancing through him as he met her cow-eyed gaze. “I am slightly better than useless - if that.”

“Then go back to the Red Keep,” Brienne growled, lowering the sword. “Return to the safety of the palace, and stay behind your guarded walls, protected and far from harm.” 

Jaime stared at her, willing his feet to start back towards his horse, to do exactly what she was suggesting. Nothing happened. After a moment, she continued.

“But if you’re staying here, you will learn to fight with what you have, and to defend yourself,” she admonished. Promised. 

“And if I take the sword...” he asked, realizing he had already lost the battle. 

Lips twitching upwards in triumph, Brienne shoved the Valyrian sword at Jaime. He caught it awkwardly with his good hand. Bending down, the wench snatched up the spare blade he had taken from the armoury only hours prior. 

Close by, their third companion was muttering under his breath as he vainly tried to start a fire with wet logs.

“Gods Podrick, what do you think you’re doing?” Brienne called out; she shifted her gaze to look at the squire, her attention abruptly diverted.

As the wench marched off to chastise Podrick, Jaime lay the sword across his false limb. 

“Oathkeeper,” he whispered, wondering why the word sounded like a hollow lie, and tasted like ashes against his tongue.


	2. Parting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A parting of the ways.

Chapter 2

The days could only be differentiated by how much more dirt they accumulated on their persons from one day to the next. The scarlet Lannister cloak he had started the journey with was so covered in dust and mud, Tywin Lannister himself would have been hard pressed to recognize the red of his house.

There was a marked difference, Jaime realized, between riding with an army at his back, or with a retinue of servants who obeyed his every whim. For one thing, there was always someone on hand with fresh clothing conjured from somewhere. 

There were cooks, and tents, and bedding, and someone to draw a hot bath when he commanded for one.

At least, he thought as his horse picked over the uneven ground, he had the presence of mind to stash a single change of clothes in his pack along with a pouch full of dragons, before he had ridden out in his armour and red cloak. That however, was unfortunately the only concession he had made for his travels. 

Without the benefit of servants, capable squires and hot baths, Jaime Lannister, to his bemusement, was coming to the conclusion that he was starting to smell, and that an evening meal was not a guaranteed luxury.

To be fair, he wasn’t actually sure how he smelled; there was a chance his senses were becoming inured to the stench. 

The last time he had wandered in the wilderness, slowly edging towards King’s Landing, he had either spent it bitterly contemplating his chained body, or longing to touch once again, the planes of his sister’s face. Moreover, the misery and agony from his missing limb had, in a way, distracted him from the more mundane circumstances of rough travel. Now however, he had nothing but time to think about the cold perspiration trickling down his back, trapped in the fibres of his tunic pressed against his skin by his heavy armour. At one point, he had removed his cloak to alleviate the dull heat, but found the cold air untenable. 

Thus was he stuck in a permanent state of mild physical discomfort that irritated more than it hurt.

***

In the mornings, by the pre-dawn light, the wench would raise her sword after her private rituals, a signal that she was ready to start their swordplay. A signal he was always glad to respond to. It meant he could stop pretending to be sound asleep when truly, he was drowning in restless dreams of green eyes. Eyes that alternated between wrath and disappointment.

The re-learning and un-learning of skills he had picked up over a lifetime was slow-going. Every stroke felt clumsy; every step felt wrong. Each time the flat of Brienne’s sword struck him, he had to keep from throwing his sword down and storming away like a petulant child.

By the time the sun had risen, the trio would already be on their way, riding across wilder and wilder terrain all the time, past emptied settlements and burned crofts.

_They’re so small I can’t even see them._

She - Cersei - had repeated those words to him often, he recalled as he passed the broken down dwellings. She repeated those words each time they coupled in the shadows, hands and fingers delving past silk and leather to find skin, grasping and gripping, their bodies entwined in unholy union. 

Once, those words had resonated. He had agreed with her, body and soul, for what could matter if he could exist in the burning embrace of his sweet sister, his world. 

Later though. Later, when the dust had settled, and she had married the victor of a rotten war, the ruler of a rotten kingdom. Even in the deepest hazes of desire that settled over them like the finest netting, he had often thought to remind her that he was named ‘Kingslayer’ simply because he had seem them all too well. 

The people, that is. 

But then, it had been easier to swallow the words, he had thought to himself, then to raise the spectre of demons best left buried.

Not so easy now, seeing the destroyed lives of the smallfolk laid out before him, trod under the hooves of his little party as they rode onwards. Even Brienne, singular as she was, seldom looked down at the ground, at the piles of ashes that littered the land. 

***

Perhaps it had been months. Perhaps not. 

In addition to their morning routines, sparring now took place as well before sundown, as Podrick prepared their scant meals. Jaime was starting to catch the wench off guard at times, particularly when he thought to improvise his fighting style by leveraging his solid gold hand. While he would rather have had his hand whole and attached, it was unlikely he could have prevented sharp steel from taking his head with a limb of flesh and blood. 

By the time they stopped in their first inn, Jaime was sporting far less bruises from his sessions with the Wench than when their journey had began. In fact, he was satisfied to see her moving gingerly at times due to bruises he had started to inflict in return.

“I’m looking for Sansa Stark,” Brienne announced to the room full of tired travellers, all of whom were either speaking quietly amongst themselves, or solidly focused on the bottoms of their mugs. Midday light filtered dustily through dirty windows.

Jaime winced. 

“My good Lady Tarth…” he began.

“If anyone has seen her, please tell me,” the wench implored, ignoring him. “She’s a tall, slender girl with red hair, about seventeen years of age.”

Even dull Podrick, dim as he was, stared around the room apprehensively, taking stock of the suspicious stares aimed towards the trio.

“I’m Sansa Stark,” A whore with hair dyed garishly red called out from a corner of the room. She strutted towards them, hands on her hips, breasts thrust out. A ripple of laughter passed over the crowd. She leered, “Well, for ten coppers, I can be anyone you want,”

“Ser,” Podrick said urgently in a low voice. “We should perhaps just eat and be on our way,”

“I’m not a knight,” Brienne reminded the squire with some irritation, her face flushed as red as Jaime had ever seen. She strode towards the only empty table in the establishment; shrugging, the sworn knight followed with the squire trailing behind.

Despite the fact that the wench had plenty of good sense - and Gods knew, no one could accuse her of being craven - Jaime sometimes forgot she was still a high born lady. What she didn't seem to understand, was that most smallfolk wouldn’t recognize a member of a noble house if their bodies were being trod over by horses that ate better than their children. 

“Perhaps it might serve our cause if we were a little more subtle,” he tried again, settling down across from her. 

“We could try that,” she agreed crustily. “Though your golden hand doesn’t exactly do us any favours. How many travellers wander about with a solid gold appendage?”

There were several retorts he could have readily come back with, given her choice of words, but as he took another glance around, he realized the truth in her words. Stares of curiosity and open greed fixated on his false limb.

“I’ll see if I can find a leatherworker close by,” Podrick stood up. “I know some of the Gold Cloaks have had had leather…replacements…made for themselves,”

With that, he hurried out the door, leaving the two to glare. Jaime made quick work of unfastening his golden hand and hiding it under his dusty cloak; he regarded the pommel of Oathkeeper thoughtfully.

“Leather strips,” Brienne relented with a wry smile. “That should hide your wealth well enough,”

“A pity Pod had to leave,” he replied, relaxing his posture. “This would have been the first edible meal we’re about to have in a long time. One he didn't prepare.”

“Did you _know_ how hopeless he was when you foisted him on me?” the wench demanded suspiciously as ale and a meat pie were brought out of the kitchen to their table by a plump young man.

“He had saved my brother’s life,” Jaime said mildly, pouring golden brown liquid into a glass of dubious cleanliness. “I assume that fact implied there’s some hope for him,”

“Are you knights?” the serving boy asked loudly, not budging from his spot by their table.

Before Jaime could dismiss him with a curt answer, Brienne said,

“Do I look like a knight?” 

_That chip on her shoulder must hurt,_ Jaime thought uncharitably. 

“No, young man,” he sliced himself some pie. “Just weary travellers who are hungry and in search of some peace and quiet,”

Unfortunately, the hint was not taken. The serving boy pulled up a chair and started talking at them. Jaime chewed his greasy food, trying not to notice the blandness of the meat, the staleness of the crust, and the incessant jabber in his ear. Of course, the wench had no compunction in bluntly cutting the poor boy off. 

“We’re looking for Sansa Stark,” 

Jaime winced again, but kept his peace. 

“Unless you know where she is, please leave us,”

There was silence. 

“Sansa Stark,” the boy replied in a strangled voice. Jaime stopped chewing and turned to look at the boy, whose face had gone ashen.

“Yes,” 

Looking as if he had just encountered something that frightened him, the serving boy stood up abruptly. “I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no Sansa Stark,”

Jaime stared at the fleeing figure thoughtfully. 

“Well that was certainly an interesting waste of our time,” Brienne commented dryly.

Raising his brows in response, Jaime picked up his belongings and stalked towards the kitchen where the young man had disappeared to, ignoring the continued stares and murmurs in his direction. Among the voices, he could pick out the wench’s annoyed inflections.

Something about arrogant bastards. 

He couldn’t help the smallest of smiles. 

***

“I couldn’t find a leather worker, but I did trade a few coppers for this," Podrick held out a crude metal hook. Straps dangled off the bottom of it.

Jaime stared at the proffered object with barely concealed disdain as he stashed the golden hand away in his saddle-pack. 

“It’s far less noticeable,” Brienne said, uncharacteristically gentle in her tone. She mounted her horse in one graceful movement, and reached down to touch him on his shoulder. 

Sighing, the knight allowed Podrick to fasten the hook to his arm. 

“You’d be interested to know that Arya Stark passed through this fine establishment some time ago,” he said casually. “Our serving boy doesn’t have much details to offer, aside from a garbled account of how he hopes his friend ‘Arry’ is still alive in the company of the Brotherhood,”

Brienne gaped at him. 

“You’ll catch flies that way,” Jaime allowed himself to smirk at her in satisfaction as Pod stepped away. “I suppose I should apologize - your…unsubtle…methods do seem to bear results,”

“We have to find them if they have Arya,” she declared, shaking herself out of her stupor. 

“If they have Arya Stark, and she hasn’t already been publicly ransomed, she's most likely already in good hands,” Jaime disagreed, recalling certain facts about who ran with the Brotherhood without Banners.

“Are you suggesting we allow the youngest surviving Stark child to remain in the company of men no better than brigands?” the wench demanded, hands gripping her reins so hard, her knuckles had turned white.

“I am suggesting we let her remain protected by a group of warriors, whose sworn mission is to oppose every last Lannister effort. That is, if she's not already dead.” he corrected, hoisting himself up on his own steed. There was a small ripping sound - the hook had caught on the edge of his cloak, Jaime found to his irritation.

“I would also like to suggest that we ride for the Vale. Lysa Arryn might have some interest in sparing assistance in our quest to seek her missing nieces.” Jaime tried to banish the memory of how the woman had imprisoned and nearly killed his brother, along with the rumours of her ‘touched’ ways. 

“The three of us aimlessly roaming the countryside - picturesque as it is - is possibly going to remain a fool’s errand at the pace we’re going.” he said with conviction.

“Yet we just uncovered tidings of Arya Stark,” Brienne countered heatedly.

“We got lucky,” Jaime leaned forward. “We will not always be lucky.”

“My Lad…Ser…” Podrick stuttered, atop his gray. “Lord Jaime is right. It is a vast land, and any help would be welcome,”

Brienne’s jaw tightened in frustration.

“Ride for the Vale if you wish. I will seek Arya Stark and bring her to safety,” she declared.

Jaime nodded curtly, disappointed in the wench for ignoring what he thought was sound logic. 

“Safe travels. Gods willing, our paths will cross again,” he stated. “Pod, remain with the Lady. See to her safety and her comfort.”

The words would almost have been a cruel jape, but for the seriousness in which the squire received them.

“Jaime…be careful,” Brienne said, her large blue eyes gazed imploringly at him, as though willing him to change his mind.

“I am nothing else,” he smirked half-heartedly, turning his horse to the East. Without further hesitation, Jaime rode off, not wishing to see the wench and Podrick disappearing into the distance, leaving him alone.


	3. Marked

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime's poor cloak keeps receiving more abuse.
> 
> Jaime can't catch a break, in general. 
> 
> Lots of Jaime angst.
> 
> First contact is made.
> 
> Oh, and I'm embellishing/changing some events from the show to fit my story. :)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Story is still moving at a slow pace...

Alone, Jaime set a punishing pace, riding hard for the Vale of Arryn. Twice in his travels, he traded his mount for a fresh horse at inns he passed, wary he might break his beast before he reached his destination.

Each night, as he settled down for a few hours of respite in a lonely ditch, sleep found him easily enough, although the bad dreams never abated. Sometimes, he dreamt of Cersei, weeping for want of him and for their lost son. Other times, he dreamt of her exquisite nails raking furrows in his face as she raged at him for deserting her.

The worst dreams were the ones where Tyrion’s broken body was suspended before him, imploring him through dead lips for a salvation Jaime could not offer.

“Brother they are hurting me…” his younger brother’s voice rasped, eyes clouded and unblinking. “Brother, please…”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” he wept, waking himself up, half twisted in his ruined cloak. The wetness on his face was cold against his skin.

On the seventeenth night, so close to the Bloody Gate he could see the guard towers in the distance, Jaime allowed himself the luxury of settling down in a small inn, with the promise of a soft bed for his aching bones, and a much needed bath.

As he chewed morosely on yet another tasteless meat pie, his hooked ‘hand’ resting uselessly by his plate, he caught the middle of a hushed conversation amongst a group of soldiers bearing the sigil of the Eyrie.

“…Robin Arryn might be the Lord of the Eyrie, but Petyr Baelish is our true ruler,”

“Aye, the tidings are grim indeed. If the rumours are to be believed, Sansa Stark was truly the one who pushed Lysa Arryn to her death before transforming into a she-wolf,” intoned another. Jaime stiffened, his good hand reaching for his sword reflexively. The shine of Oathkeeper’s golden hilt and pommel were obscured by twists of fabric ripped from his ever more damaged cloak.

“I’ve heard serving girls tell me they’d have pushed Lysa Arryn out that bloody Moon Door themselves if they could. If Lady Sansa did the deed, then she has at least, won the favour of the Arryn household,”

Jaime swore under his breath. Abandoning his dinner, he marched to the room he had bought for the night where a tub of scalding water was already waiting. Ensuring his door was securely barricaded, he ripped the hook from his right arm and stripped off his armour and clothing. Had it been possible, he would have burned his filthy tunic, but as it were, he had few options.

Sinking into steaming water that was much too hot for comfort, Jaime weighed the news he had inadvertently come across. If it were true that Lysa Arryn was dead and Peter Baelish ruled the Vale, then all he had done was for naught - for hadn’t Littlefinger sworn his allegiance to the crown often and loudly?

While Lady Arryn had herself been a sworn ally to the Baratheon standard, he had counted on familial ties to sway her in his own favour. That, and his oath to her dearly departed sister.

And what was that the men had said about Sansa Stark’s role in all of this? What could that possibly mean? Was she _here_ in the Vale? If Baelish had her, then his brilliant plan was further doomed to the corners of all seven hells. To steal her would be to commit further treachery to the crown, as Littlefinger would most certainly be transporting her back to King’s Landing. Unless of course, Baelish was holding on to her…

Jaime’s head ached.

***

The bed, though soft, offered scant comfort to Jaime that night as he considered and discarded plans in the darkness. When sleep finally found him, he dreamed of his father, eyeing him with a familiar disappointment. They stood below the Iron Throne where the rotting corpse of Aerys Targaryen presided, maggot-infested eye sockets following father and son’s every move.

“You were my heir - the heir to Casterly Rock and the Lannister name. And you gave that up for what?” Tywin demanded. “A white cloak and an empty sense of honour,”

“I gave that up to serve my King,” he desperately refused to look upon the horror in the seat above them. It flickered momentarily, becoming Joffrey as he has last seen him - his purpling face frozen in terror, hands clutching uselessly at his throat.

“You have shamed me. You have shamed your sister and your mother,” Tywin Lannister stated, and turned his back to Jaime.

“Father…” in his dream, Jaime found himself reaching out to touch the other man, in a way he would never could have done in his waking moments.

Tywin turned to regard him one last time. A slow trickle of blood flowed from the corner of his mouth. Crossbow bolts protruded from his stomach where they had punched a hole, and blood pooled at his feet.

“My son…” his father whispered, and crumpled to the ground, eyes wide and glazed over in death. The Mad King’s laughter echoed all around him, mocking and full of malice.

Jaimie’s eyes flew open, breaths coming hard and fast.

Outside, the sky was full dark, dawn nowhere in sight.

***

The plan was simple enough. Ride up to the guard tower and ask to whom he may speak with, who might want to hire an extra sword for the Eyrie. It was the most straightforward way he could think of, to ingratiate himself into the household.

As far as plots went, Jaime had to admit it lacked a certain flair, but with all his previous strategies laid waste, he knew not what other path there was. And already, he had come this far.

Ambling up to the first entryway of the Eyrie, looking everything like a common sellsword with his patchy beard and his dirty clothing, unexpectedly, the Bloody Gate opened, revealing a carriage and a train of men on horseback.

Pulling his horse off the small road, Jaime drew up the cowl of his cloak, obscuring his features. As the carriage rushed past, the knight caught a glimpse of wistful blue eyes gazing out the carriage windows.

His heart sank. He knew that face well - he only had one good-sister after all.

Waiting until the riders had all but disappeared on the dirt road, Jaime started to follow behind, as far back as he could without losing sight of the caravan. They kept travelling West for a half a morning. It was when they reached the crossroads leading North and South that he received his biggest and most unwelcome surprise yet.

The caravan turned towards the North.

 _What’s Littlefinger playing at,_ Jaime wondered, deeply misliking this development.

As he slowly followed the meandering caravan, the Kingslayer recalled bits and pieces of gossip from the court of his youth. Petyr Baelish had pursued the hand of Catelyn Stark, ardently and shamelessly, before being soundly humiliated by Brandon Stark in an ill conceived duel.

Was he now protecting Lady Stark’s daughter for the sake of a long lost love?

While he knew and cared little for the intrigues of the court, somehow, he quite doubted that the man had Sansa Stark’s interests in mind. He believed it was Tyrion who had once scoffed,

“There are vipers I’d sooner trust with my life, before I give Lord Baelish an ounce of my good faith,”

Thinking of Tyrion made his stomach twist unpleasantly, but regardless, he trusted his younger brother’s assessment.

Already, his mind was running through new scenarios, of how best he could steal the girl from under Baelish’s nose. They were well guarded - had he still possessed his sword hand, one man against thirty would still have been too much.

If only the wench had come with him, he thought grimly. At least, with her ruthless skills and his tactics, they might have stood a chance.

***

The carriage stopped once every few hours, almost like clockwork. In fact, he considered, he was sure each break was carefully timed by the captain of their guard. At each stop, the occupants in the carriage had a chance to relieve themselves, a chance to stretch a little.

A solid plan started to hatch in Jaimie’s mind as the day wore on into the afternoon - solid, though risky.

Taking a deep breath and gripping his reins, the knight dug his heels into the flanks of his horse and broke into a full gallop, passing the caravan as fast as he could manage. Once they were safely out of sight, he made a swift calculation in his mind and reined in his horse. Climbing out of the saddle, he pulled the horse deep, deep into the woods. After carefully securing his mount to a strong bough, Jaime tucked himself behind a boulder.

Now it was simply a matter of waiting, and patience. And what was a Lion, if not a hunter?

***

He was pleased to see that his instincts were still serving him well - the caravan stopped beside where he was waiting. The carriage doors opened, and out stepped his quarry.

Risking a glance towards the narrow road, he took in the sight of his good-sister, and saw to his satisfaction that she looked physically unharmed, though her hair was no longer the fiery Tully red of her mother's, but darkened to a dull brown. The Lady wore a look of infinite sadness, and it was with a start of guilt that Jaime suddenly realized he hadn’t seen a smile grace her youthful face - at least, not since his return to King’s Landing. The girl before him was not the girl he had met in the courtyards of Winterfell, who had been the very picture of innocence and guileless sweetness. Behind her, Baelish emerged.

Something about the way that man’s eyes lingered over the girl’s body, about the way he seemed to cling to her very person, made Jaime’s blood course just a little faster; there was a hunger in the depths of the older man’s grey eyes that set his teeth on edge.

“My Lady, take all the time you need. From here, we ride till nightfall, and an inn where we will spend the night,” Littlefinger’s rasping voice had always grated at Jaime’s nerves, and it did nothing to soothe them now.

“Thank you my Lord,” Sansa responded almost dismissively.

Guards posted themselves at the edge of the forest, as she slowly made her way somewhere a little more private. As silently as he could, Jaime followed her. When he was sure they would not be heard, he snuck up and wrapped a hand around her mouth, muffling a startled and frightened shriek.

“Lady Sansa, I’m here to take you to safety,” he whispered, turning her to face him.

Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and she twisted her body attempting to move away.

“My horse is close by, if you would follow…”

The lady bit his hand, right between thumb and forefinger. Hard.

Swallowing a number of obscenities, he held fast to her arm and clasped his throbbing hand harder against her lips despite the searing pain. “I have a dagger, and I will use it if you scream, do you understand?”

He wasn’t planning on hurting her, but she did not have to know that. All she saw, he realized, was that he was the Kingslayer who had hurt her father in the streets of King’s Landing. All she saw was a Lannister.

“I am removing my hand,” he informed her softly.

She nodded, eyes wide. No tears though, he noticed. She wiped at her bloodied mouth with her black sleeves.

“Are you here to take me back to the Queen?” she asked. Sansa was desperately grasping on to her courage, judging by the quake in her shoulders. He could not help but admire her relative composure in that moment, all things considered.

“If I were here on the Queen’s orders, do you think I’d be skulking alone in the shadows?” He asked wryly. “I’d have an army with me, openly demanding that Lord Baelish hand you over to the crown.”

Sansa took a moment to consider this.

“I do not believe you.” she stated, voice wavering. “I want to stay with Petyr.”

“You can’t trust Littlefinger,” he was growing exasperated. “I swore to your mother…”

“My mother is dead at the hands of the Boltons and the Freys, who acted in the stead of the _Lannisters_. And you are saying that I should trust _you_?” she all but spat, twisting her arm to remove herself from his grasp.

Not far enough away, a guard’s voice rang across the otherwise silent woods. “My Lady, do you require assistance?”

Jaime held his breath, expecting that now, now she would scream, and he would be cornered. Instead, after a moment, he heard Sansa reply,

“No ser, please stay where you are…I will return momentarily,”

Surprised, Jaime took a step back, releasing his hold on her.

“I do not need rescuing, I am safe with Petyr,” she whispered fiercely. Her voice did not quite waver, but it was the naked plea in her eyes that stopped him from taking hold of her again. “I’m sorry you have travelled all this way for nothing. If you truly wish to help me, let me go…just let me go…please.”

He was certain he looked a slack jawed idiot as she stalked away from him. One or twice, she glanced over her shoulder nervously.

Jaime’s hand stung and bled where she had marked him.

Later, much later, when he looked back at this moment, he would hate himself for not knocking her to the ground and forcefully carrying her to his horse. He would hate himself for all the harm he could have prevented, all the ways he could have protected her.

Right then however, he stood alone under the silent green canopy, wondering if he had made the greatest mistake of his life, in abandoning his post, his family, his love, for a maid who did not need, nor want his help.


	4. Pivot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime kicks some butt. 
> 
> Jaime comes to a few realizations.

When he finally came out of his stupor, Jaime found himself on the road South, wondering how best he ought to beg his sister for forgiveness. Undoubtedly, Father would simply use this as an excuse to strip him of his White cloak, making him once again, the heir to the Lannister legacy. Out of everyone in his family, he expected his brother to be the first to forgive him his abandonment - that is, if he still lived.

As dusk approached, Jaime could not stop his mind from turning to the unfortunate encounter with the girl for whom he had come this far. Something was niggling at the back of his mind; the facts laid out before him…there was something wrong with the picture he had been drawn. 

It was strange to find Sansa with Littlefinger, who seemed by all appearances, as if he were protecting her from the wrath of the Queen Regent. 

_Why were they going North? There is nothing north, except for Moat Cailin, and then…_

Jaime paled. 

_Winterfell._ Winterfell lay at the end of that thought. 

A Winterfell held by the Boltons, the cruelest cunts he had ever had the displeasure of knowing. The Boltons, who had allied themselves to the Lannisters, switching loyalties when their old ones would serve them no more, no matter that the Starks had kept them under their protection for centuries.

‘Seven hells,” he swore out loud, gaze dropping to where his right arm ended and the metal hook began. His stump bore testament to the hospitality of all who rode with the Boltons. Was Peter acting on Cersei’s orders, to trick the girl into a trap lined with nothing but torment and degradation? He wouldn’t put it past his sister. Without him to rein in her worst impulses, he often feared the thought of what she was truly capable of.

Or was there more to it? Jaime despised the fact that he had to start truly considering the politics he spent most of his life trying to ignore. Reining in his horse, he bit back a groan, gazing longingly towards King’s Landing.

***

At sundown, he found himself approaching a fork in the road, one side stretching into little more than a pathway. At the end of that path, he could almost make out the lights of a warm tavern. It would be the first he had seen in miles. Before he could consider the chances that this was the place Lord Baelish may have taken Sansa, he observed two familiar figures barrelling onto the road on horseback, pursued by a number of armoured soldiers.

 _Gods be good, it’s the wench_ , he thought. Without a second thought, he urged his horse into a gallop, passing the inn at full speed. The sounds of pursuit drew ever nearer, until he found himself almost on top of Pod, who was staring helplessly at a sword swooping towards him.

Jaime drew Oathkeeper and slashed at the legs of the other man’s horse, causing the beast to scream in agony, spilling its rider from his saddle. The man rolled to his feet, ignoring the dying horse whilst grunting in pain and frustration. From the way he moved, it would appear that something was broken in his body. 

Leaping off his own steed, Jaime swung Oathkeeper in a wide arc, and the battle was joined. 

This was his first real fight since he lost his right hand; sparring with Brienne had been good for him, but the stakes were never real. Right now, if he lost, he died; if he won, he took a man’s life. Even with that simple, deadly knowledge, the former Kingsguard found himself revelling in the brutality, the familiarity of the dance he was engaged in. Parry after parry, stroke after stroke…

The juddering impact of steel against steel made his heart pump with a wild sort of joy. Perhaps he was slower than he was used to. Perhaps his technique clumsier. A few times, he found himself instinctively blocking a strike with his right hand, only to remember at the last that all he had between him and certain death was a metal hook. 

Regardless. Jaime felt more alive than he had in a long time. 

His enemy stumbled, injuries from his fall taking their toll. With one last swing of Valyrian steel, the man was disarmed. 

“Please,” he gasped, kneeling on the ground. Jaime almost hesitated, but then he remembered the look on Pod’s face as the soldier ruthlessly bore down on the un-armed boy. Raising his sword, he stabbed true, snuffing out the life of his opponent in a single stroke.

Behind him, he could hear Pod breathing at a pace almost matching his own. There was a pounding of hooves as he heard Brienne scream, “Down!”

Reflexively, Jaime twisted and leaped at a yelping Pod and drove him into the ground. There was a sharp hiss overhead, followed by the sound of another body falling lifelessly into the dirt. 

After a few seconds, Brienne slumped down beside her two companions, staring at Jaime and Pod with an unfathomable expression, fighting to breathe.

***

He insisted that they return to the inn, to track the route taken by Littlefinger and Sansa towards the East Road. 

The carriage he had followed from the Bloody Gate stood abandoned outside the tavern. Elegantly carved doors hung obscenely open, revealing a few chests they had left behind in their hurry to get away. Rummaging through the contents of the wooden boxes proved fruitless; Jaime found no clues of Baelish’s intentions. 

In the meantime, unfettered by a heavy carriage, their quarry was riding fast and far away from them. 

“You had her and you let her go?” Brienne demanded incredulously, ignoring the dirty looks thrown their way by the innkeeper. The man nonetheless clutched two dragons in his greasy fist. That was more money than any he would have made in a year of toiling. 

“I had her and I let her go. Right into your capable arms,” Jaime slammed the carriage door shut. He kicked at it in anger and frustration. 

Brienne had the grace to look ashamed. “I suppose I could have handled that situation a little better,”  


“Seven hells,” Jaime said. “We’re fine heroes, blundering about the wilderness, chasing helpless maidens - I wonder what the songwriters will sing of us,”

Brilliant blue cow eyes stared at him mournfully. 

“I did find Arya Stark,” she stated. 

“Behold your success in saving _her_ ,” he remarked dryly, and felt a pang of guilt. If the fading bruises along her neck were any indication, the wench had experienced her fair share of hardships. More, even.

They regarded each other in defeated silence.

***

As they rode down the East Road, Jaime shared his suspicions of Littlefinger’s intended destination to a horrified Brienne. In return, she told him of her brush with the youngest Stark daughter.

“Are you telling me that you defeated one of the strongest men whom I have ever met in single combat?” he was utterly flabbergasted. 

“It’s all for nothing,” she shook her head. “Arya was gone. She didn’t even want to come with me to begin with,”

“Pardon my saying this…” Pod spoke up. “But if neither Stark girls want your help…are not the two of you free of your Oaths?” 

“Podrick, did you hear a word I said about where Littlefinger is likely transporting Lady Sansa?” Jaime asked scathingly, his patience running wisp thin. “God knows what lies the man has been feeding her. And did you truly expect, after everything she has suffered, that the girl would allow herself to be whisked away by a maimed Lannister, or a lady auroch she’s barely shared a word with?” 

Podrick looked down in shame, and again, Jaime felt that prickle of guilt. Instead of apologizing, Jaime dug his heels into his mount and rode ahead.

The road turned gradually north, running, he was certain, parallel to the Kingsroad. Jaime felt sick, thinking of Roose Bolton’s cold watery eyes, and the sigil of his house. Even Tywin, ruthless commander that he was, had found the flayed bodies on the battlefield beyond the reach of human decency. If even half the rumours of what his bastard was capable of were true, then surely, evil had found a true form in them.

That _his_ family had allied themselves with that repulsive house…that fact ate at him more than he could ever tell. 

It felt like a bad jape - he had killed one sadistic monster, only to break bread with another sadistic monster. He was still waiting for the punchline. 

_I was a fool to think an innocent like Sansa Stark would trust me._

He looked back at Brienne, still stewing in her private misery, and remembered finding her in a pit with a starving bear, staving it off with a bated sword. He remembered who had put her there, and whom they served.

Perhaps he had failed at many things, Jaime thought as his fingers tightened on his reins. But this - this he would not fail at. He could not. 

After all, Sansa Stark was his last chance for honour, he thought with grim finality, at last, admitting to himself why he had allowed himself to come this far.


	5. Inhale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime reaches Winter Town and hears the bad news.
> 
> Jaime mopes.
> 
> Harwin gets used as a plot device but at least he shows up here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Jaime/Sansa action is right around the corner now. I'm looking forward to the horrid writing coming out of my own sad brain.

As they passed Moat Cailin after days upon days of relentless travel, Jaime slowed his horse down as his sharp eyes caught the silhouette of bodies in the distance, crucified to wooden beams in the shape of the Bolton sigil.

They looked to be nothing more than bones picked over by crows even from where the three riders stood.

Brienne and he shared a look of dark apprehension, while Podrick seemed to be turning an unnatural shade of green.

“Look well young Podrick - if we fail, we’ll likely find our end on one of those,” Jaime warned. 

To his credit, the squire nodded and did as he was bid. He took a hard look at the corpses in the distance, even though the anointed knight could see that the sight frightened him. At least he certainly hope it did - for Jaime could not keep the tendrils of fear from tugging at his own heart.

There was nothing for it but to ride onwards.

***

By the time they reached Winter Town, it became clear to Jaime that his summation of the situation was accurate, if not disturbing. It couldn’t be missed - not with the small populace of Winter Town murmuring about the news whichever way they turned. 

Lady Sansa Stark had returned, and she had been married to the recently legitimized Bolton Bastard.

The words were spoken in strangled whispers, coated with a healthy dose of fear; no wonder, in the shadow of fresh corpses hanging from the walls of the castle, blood still dripping from their flayed bodies. 

“What manner of monsters would do such things?” Brienne questioned coldly and quietly, hands never straying far from her weapons. 

Jaime didn’t assume that she wanted an answer. He took everything in, and almost laughed to himself but for the fact that none of it was very funny. The game Littlefinger was playing was rapidly becoming apparent in form, if not in details. The game was everyone, and Sansa was but a pawn on his complicated board, whether or not she realized it yet. 

Lady Sansa married to _Lord_ Ramsay, he thought with not a little fear and disgust, recalling again, the disturbing rumours of his perversions.

 _And her still bearing the Lannister name as well. The others take you Baelish_ , Jaime thought, furious at the treachery. Littlefinger was untrustworthy, all who knew him knew this…but the fact that he had betrayed the _Lannisters_ …for all Jaime had already done, for all he felt about his own Father, he chafed sharply at the insult against his name. 

The one tavern in town - the Smoking Log - offered the three travellers a single room. It was a cold and shabby thing, the bedding so dirty, Jaime was wont to sleep on the floor - but for the fact that the rushes laid on the ground were filthier than his garments.

No matter, rest was not why they were here, he conceded grimly as he kicked away what looked like rat droppings. The view from the uncovered window certainly provided an excellent view of the castle. 

“Tell me, are you pleased by the return of Sansa Stark?” Brienne asked of their serving boy who couldn’t have seen more than seventeen namedays.

“Milor…milady?” he stuttered. 

“Well?” 

“Of course milady,” the boy was so frightened, Jaime was certain he was soiling himself. 

“And are you pleased that she is now a Bolton?” the knight couldn’t stop himself from asking. “I always thought the saying was ‘there must always be a Stark at Winterfell’. ‘Bolton’ just doesn’t quite have the same ring does it?”

The boy straightened, his gray eyes turning flinty. Jaime was reminded of his conversation in the forest with Sansa - it was the brave posturing, really, that he hearkened back to. These damned Northerners and their stupid courage. It’d get them all killed.

“She’ll always be a Stark to me,” the boy declared stoutly. Then, as if remembering himself, he immediately become wild eyed and hunched all over again.

“Yes. As she will always be to us as well,” Jaime said meaningfully, hoping the risk he was taking would not cost them too much. For all his talk to Pod about taking a good look at their possible fates, being flayed alive was not something he would be able to face with the necessary fortitude, he rather suspected.

Looking startled, the young man fled the room.

Brienne sighed while Podrick fruitlessly attempted to make their living conditions better in any small way possible.

“How do you propose we get to her?” the wench asked in a tone of one who was certain she would not like the answer she was going to receive.

“I do not know,” Jaime admitted. “Not yet,”

“There must be some who love the Stark name, who would want to help us save their Lady,” 

“Aye…” Jaime agreed distantly. “But do they love it enough to risk their own lives for it?”

***  
His memories of Winterfell largely consisted of the ever present cold that snuck into his bones, no matter the layers he wore. Even during the summertime when he had last visited, flurries swirled in the early mornings and late evenings, and it had not been unusual to see thatched eaves weighed down by snow. 

_Winterhell_ , the members of the Royal caravan had tittered. Even Robert had spared a smile at that.

Now that Winter – to paraphrase the Stark saying – was truly coming, the intensity of the cold was beyond anything Jaime had ever experienced in his life. Every part of his body felt it. In the darkness of the early morning as he tended to his horse, he could barely feel the muscles in numbed cheeks. At least here, he was spared the snores of the squire, and the constant pacing of the wench. 

They had been in Winter Town for four days, fruitlessly trying to plan their next move. Being on the road had been easier, even when Sansa Stark felt out of reach. At least they had a goal, a direction towards which they moved. Here, literally a few hundred yards from their goal, the girl never seemed so unattainable. 

Softly stroking his horse as it chewed solemnly on its oats, Jaime heard the stable door opening and shutting behind him. The knight spun around, sword already in hand.

“I heard tell there were Stark loyalists visitin’,” the man said, staring at him warily. He was not anyone Jaime recognized and it did nothing to relax him. 

“Did you now?” Jaime asked silkily, eyes following the stranger’s every move. “And what’s that to you?”

“It’s everything to me,” the man stepped into a patch of lamplight where his features could be seen. An empty eye socket and a long gash marked the man’s face. He smiled a bitter, tired smile. 

“This is what the Bastard did to me, for failin’ to brush his horse’s mane quick enough,” the man pointed at the place where his left eye had been, before moving to the deep scar. “And this…this was for fun,”

“We’re not here to storm the castle,” Jaime relaxed his stance very slightly. 

“Then what are ye here _for_?” the man demanded. 

He took a moment to consider his next words, but realized now was as good a chance as any. “We're here for Lady Sansa. We’re here to take her to safety.”

The stranger bowed his head, and let out what sounded like a harsh sob. 

“I used to lead the two Stark girls on their ponies when they were but girls. And now…now I can hear Lady Sansa weeping every day and every night from the Keep, and I can do nothing. He hurts her. I know it.”

Jaime took a step forward.

“Tell me,” the Lord Commander of the Kingsguard said, hand bearing down on the stranger’s shoulder. “Tell me how we can save her. I swear it by the old Gods and the new, we will do all we can. Or die trying.”

 

***

“And you trust this…” Brienne looked closely at the man who shifted uncomfortably under their scrutiny. 

“Harwin,” Jaime offered helpfully, lips quirked in a desultory smirk. 

Brienne kept her unblinking eyes on the Horse Master of Winterfell. At the door, Podrick kept anxious watch through a crack

“Why would you help us?” Brienne demanded. “How do we know you won’t sell us to the Boltons?”

There was an pregnant silence. 

“Milady, take a good look at my face and what has been done to me,” the man hissed. Brienne did not so much as flinch. 

“When my father followed Eddard Stark south, I stayed here to keep his post. When the call from the Brotherhood came to avenge Lord Stark, I answered. And when I heard what that traitorous scum Greyjoy had done, I returned, even knowing it was likely a journey to my death…” Harwin continued in a low growl. “If my crime is to survive, then so be it!”

“We were the only people you could find to help you in all of the North?” her eyes narrowed. 

“Yes. Yes you are - you and a sadly precious few others among this craven lot.” 

Harwin was almost shaking in his indignation; Jaime could plainly hear his desperation underneath his rage. A desperation that drove him to all but beg for help from strangers.

“I had given up. I had stopped fighting…I thought it was my lot to die in the service of a monster,” his voice cracked. “I thought them all dead…but then Lady Sansa returned, and now…”

Had the Horse Master disappointed either of them with his story, they would have disposed of him discreetly. 

“Let’s say we do believe you…” Brienne’s voice softened. “What next?” 

The man shook his head, eyes shut in resignation. He gave them a brief outline of a plan to get them into the castle grounds and onwards to Sansa, and the best way for them to get out alive. Jaime asked questions, prodding and pushing at what they were being told, turning it over and examining the facts as thoroughly as he could.

“I will go in. Harwin will lead the horses directly to the Hunter’s Gate where you two will wait for myself and the Lady Sansa,” Jaime commanded in a tone that brooked no argument. “You will be ready for us to flee at a moment’s notice,”

“Is it safe for you to go in alone?” Podrick asked in concern from where he stood.

“I have an inkling our good Lady will draw attention to herself with…well, being _her_ , and you…well, someday, I’m sure you’ll be a fine swordsman I can call on for protection…but today is not that day,” Jaime smiled slightly. “Besides, one is easier to ignore than three.”

The wench did not look like she agreed with the plan but kept it to herself. For that, Jaime was grateful.

"Where will you be takin' her," Harwin asked. 

"To her brother at the Wall," Jaime found himself saying smoothly, as if that had always been the plan. The moment he heard himself, he realized that there had never been another option. Where else in Westeros could she possibly have been protected?

“I have to be gettin’ back,” Harwin looked out the window at the lightening sky. “I’ll find you tomorrow before dawn, same place I found you today.”

Without sparing another word, the Horse Master shoved Podrick away, leaving the tavern quickly.

***

The rest of the morning passed, minute by painful minute. Jaime found a blacksmith who sold him a serviceable dagger; he had his breastplate enforced with leather, an attempt to stave off the encroaching chill. Podrick nervously lingered in the stables, grooming the horses needlessly, and Brienne…she paced back in their room, constantly and tirelessly. 

When all distractions were expended, Jaime returned to the tavern where Brienne cast him a helpless look, while Pod polished her sword with unhealthy fervency.

They spent the afternoon in a forest close by the small town, where Jaime sparred again with Brienne. His most recent fight had nearly bolstered his confidence, but he knew even as he parried her strikes with effort, that he would never be the swordsman he had been. 

And when they were tired, worn and bruised, only then did the sun finally begin to sink low in the sky. 

***

“If we lived through tomorrow, what would you do?” Podrick asked, playing with the hilt of a short sword he had obtained from the smithy Jaime had patronized a few hours before.

The trio sat against the wall of their tiny room, staring out the window at Winterfell.

“Live?” Jaime laughed sardonically, gaze lingering at the sight of the Broken Tower from whence he had pushed Bran Stark. He could still remember how warm Cersei’s body had been against his own as they fucked in the ruin.

_The things I do for love._

How could he possibly explain that in his entire life, he had lived with a view that he mightn’t survive the next few hours? Even as his hand had connected with the child’s chest, shoving the young Stark to what he had expected was a permanent doom, he had expected to face Ned Stark’s wrath once his crime had been discovered. 

“If you survive, and I don’t…” Brienne started. “Tell my father I’m sorry. I’m sorry for letting him down,”

Jaime quirked his brow in her direction.

“I never made the match he had hoped. He has no other living family. When he dies, Tarth will have no heir,” she continued. 

He could not bring himself to think of a world without the stoic Maid of Tarth in it, and could not trust himself just then to speak.

“Tell my mother I missed her. Tell my sister she’s beautiful, and the best woman I’ve ever known,” Podrick declared. Then added bashfully to Brienne, “Begging your pardon of course,”

The wench smiled a rare smile at the squire before turning to Jaime. 

“And what should I tell your…family…?” she asked. 

He knew what she meant to say; _who_ she meant when she said the word ‘family’. What would he say to Cersei, he wondered. In the past weeks, he had time to think and to weigh his choices. He had time to consider the circumstances that had brought him here, to the arse end of the world on a mission that meant almost certain death. 

His reasons were largely borne from Cersei’s own spite, he concluded uncomfortably; her anger against an undeserving girl for a crime she never committed - could never have committed. Sansa Stark would never have stood a chance against the unreasoning vindictiveness of Cersei’s anger, and running was her only choice. Someone had to protect her, or try to, at the very least. 

“Tell my brother…” Jaime started, a lump in his throat. He forced himself to continue.

“Tell my brother that I would have stayed for him, and fought for him. Tell him I know he didn’t kill my son.”

Brienne said nothing. She nodded once. Twice. 

Podrick looked away in embarrassment.

Shutting his eyes, Jaime hung his head, both in shame and in weariness at the ugly truth he had finally laid bare, with the only people left whom he was certain he trusted.


	6. Deluge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stranger must be sated.
> 
> Also:
> 
> There is rescuing. There are Jaime/Sansa moments, which is kinda what I was coming all this way for.
> 
> Also, there is a Firefly reference (and Jaime becomes Captain Tightpants for a bit)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> GoT Season 2:
> 
> _Brienne of Tarth_  
>  _I do not know your son, My Lady, but I could serve you if you would have me. You have courage…and I think that when the time comes, you will not hold me back. Promise me that you will not hold me back from Stannis._
> 
> _Catelyn Stark_  
>  _When the time comes, I will not hold you back._
> 
> _Brienne of Tarth_  
>  _Then I am yours, My Lady…I swear it by the Old Gods and the New._
> 
> _Catelyn Stark_  
>  _I vow that you shall always have a place in my home and at my table, and that I shall ask no service of you that might bring you dishonor. I swear it by the Old Gods and the New._

For the first time in a long time, Jaime slept without being plagued by nightmares. Likely, his body was so used to preparing on the eve of battle, it instinctively took rest wherever and whenever possible.

When he awoke, the sky was still dark outside their window. Pod snored softly, but Brienne was alert and gazing worriedly out the window.

“The town has been stirring for the past few hours,” she said quietly. “I saw all manner of riders emptying the castle, the Bolton Banner flying high above them,”

Jaime looked out with a small frown, the last vestiges of sleep leaving him.

“Perhaps this will be to our benefit,” he said thoughtfully, scratching at his beard. “Come. It is time.”

Brienne nudged Podrick, who snapped awake. Softly, the three of them crept to the stables, where as planned, Harwin was already waiting. He held out a soft package, small enough to be tucked in the folds of Jaime’s dirty tunic - his armour had been neatly packed away with his golden hand, distributed between two horses.

The squire was not completely useless at certain things, as it turned out.

In the package was an old dress belonging to a maid - the same who had filched the key to the chamber where Sansa was held.

“The Gods smile on us – the Bolton men rode off this morning to meet Stannis Baratheon on the field,” he said, visibly more cheerful than he had been the day before, voice filled with rusty hope.

“Stannis.” Brienne’s voice took on a strange pitch. “He’s here.”

Jamie shot her a warning look. “Now is not the time…”

“Ser, if Stannis is here, then I must ride out to meet him.” Brienne said, climbing onto her mount. “I took a sacred oath.”

“Have you lost your mind?” Jamie hissed in disbelief. “We’re here for Sansa Stark,”

The wench looked as if she were being torturously ripped in two. Jaime glared at her in seething anger.

“I met Renly and gave him my oath long before I met Catelyn Stark,” she said with terrible finality and regret. “And Lady Stark herself had promised that I would not be held back when I had a chance to strike,”

Turning away, Jaime tightened his straps on his steed. Harwin muttered soft expletives under his breath.

Clearing his throat, Podrick stammered, “I’ll stay. Someone has to be ready for Lord Jaime and Lady Sansa,”

“Jaime…I am truly sorry. I will find you, upon my life I swear,” 

She could not compel him to meet her gaze. With a choked sound, she rode away, leaving a furious Jaime and a confused Podrick.

***

It was decided that the squire would go on foot and linger by the Hunter’s Gate, with strict instruction to stay hidden. For that however, he had to abandon his scarlet chain mail. 

“Unless you like being filled with arrows.” Jaime spat scathingly, expending his anger on the blameless boy.

An hour later, as the sun was rising, Jaime followed behind Harwin, leading two horses. His cowl hid his green eyes and golden hair from the world.

“I will find you a third for the boy,” Harwin promised softly before they reached the East Gate. Jaime nodded slightly, jaw still locked in rage.

As they approached the main gates, a guard called, “What’s this?”

“What’s it look like?” Harwin snarled. “It’s horses for our stables you festering cunt!”

“Alright alright…don’t let the Master hear your lip or you might lose it,” the guard sneered, waving them through without a second glance. Jaime did not miss the shiver that passed through the Horse Master’s thick frame.

The castle grounds would have been familiar to his eyes but for the Bolton sigil hanging everywhere, with not a trace of the Stark Direwolf in sight. Stone still appeared blackened where it had been put to the torch…and of course, there was the every-present sight of flayed bodies hanging above them. The sickly sweet smell of rotting flesh filled his nostrils. His stomach turned unpleasantly.

_The Boltons certainly do not want for charm._

As they passed the Great Keep, as planned, Jaime hung back and ducked under a shadowy eave once he was certain no one was minding his movements. Not that there were many people about, likely thanks to Stannis and his misbegotten war.

Slipping into the doorway, Jaime hurried as quickly and as silently as he could up the stairs, constantly expecting to be met with the sharp point of a sword in his belly.

When Jaime reached the top of the third flight, the knight found himself almost knocking over a slight figure hurrying towards him.

A spill of red hair was uncovered.

Blue eyes regarded him in shock. Sansa’s lips parted to speak, but Jaime shook his head vehemently. To his intense relief, she snapped her mouth shut and remained quiet. Reaching out his left hand, he forcefully grasped at her’s, wary that she was still intent on evading his efforts.

“Have a care not to run,” he whispered as they reached the bottom step of the Great Keep, releasing her reluctantly. Irrationally, it felt like she would disappear like so much smoke if he were not touching her person. “We must not show our hand,”

She nodded her understanding, tucking any stray wisps of red hair away under her brown cloak of rough wool. He tried not to notice the purpling bruise by her mouth, or the fresh welt on the side of her forehead. There would be time for questions later…Gods willing.

Slowly - far too slowly for his liking - Jaime led them across the courtyard, hating the prickling sensation of being exposed. Nevertheless, they crossed the divide and approached the east side of the castle without incident. If he had turned around even once, he would have seen Sansa’s expression transforming from frightened to terrified as they moved closer to the gate.

Jaime fervently hoped they were moving in the right direction.

Passing a small arch, to his right, he could hear the barking and whimpering of dogs, and the dying gurgle of a man. A slender young woman stepped out of the shadows, nocking an arrow aimed right at his heart. Behind her, the man he had once known as Theon Greyjoy stood, twitching pitifully.

“My, what do we have here?” the woman asked, a parody of sweetness on her lips. He would have thought her comely had he not felt the need to recoil from her as if she were a hissing adder. The Horse Master lay lifelessly at her feet, while three horses whinnied nervously in the alcove behind her. There was an arrow lodged in Harwin’s remaining eye. 

“Milady, pray, who is this man?”

“Myranda, please..” Sansa’s breath hitched. Instinctively, Jaime moved to protect her with his own body, left hand reaching for the dagger in his belt, knowing even then that he would be too slow.

“Ramsay won’t like you running about with strangers,” Myranda tinkled merrily. “He’s a selfish man, Ramsay. But perhaps he might enjoy a new toy. Perhaps he’ll even let you two play together,”

She drew her arm further back, readying her shot. Jaime braced himself for the pain, willed himself not to scream. 

Myranda’s own shriek was cut short by a wet, crunching noise. 

Greyjoy had slammed her head into the stone wall, smashing it so hard, Jaime could see where her skull crumbled under her skin. The bow and arrow she was holding clattered uselessly away from lifeless hands as her body slid downwards. 

Sansa’s sharp intake of breathe was the only indication of her shock. The other man stared at his shaking bare hands covered in blood.

“I didn’t…I didn’t…” he repeated softly. “Oh Gods, I didn’t…”

“Theon,” Sansa called softly, stepping warily towards him.

“We must be away. Now,” Jaime said impatiently, hands itching to pull Sansa back. He misliked the look of fraying sanity in Greyjoy’s eyes. The words seemed to snap the creature out of what stupor he had fallen into. Trembling, he retrieved the weapons the other woman had dropped, and turned to lead the horses out of the kennels. 

***

As quickly as they could manage, they continued to Hunter’s Gate. On each watch tower framing the entryway, an archer stood, their gazes turned outwards. Inside, guards stood at attention at both sides of the door.

“Can you…” Jaime reluctantly inclined his head at the Greyjoy boy, who hesitated. Then, nocking the bow and arrow, he fired exactly thrice in quick succession, hitting his marks with fatal silence.

On the ground, the remaining guard stared at his fallen companion in shock, never noticing when Jaime snuck up and ran his blade through his thick neck. The man died, never knowing he had been killed.

With little difficulty, they lifted the barricades and opened the wooden doors to find a panicked Podrick dashing from the spot where he had squeezed himself, hiding from anyone who may have been watching.

“My lord, Harwin never…” he stopped short, looking at the group that had emerged. 

“He’s dead.” Jaime said shortly, climbing onto his horse and extending his hand once again to Sansa. Theon Greyjoy stared at them in a manner Jaime was fast discovering irked him to no end. “My lady, if you do not come with me, I _will_ knock you unconscious and drag you bodily from here. It is all one to me.”

Within the walls, there were shouts coming from the direction of the kennels where they had left the two corpses.

Sansa’s hand whipped out and held on to him tightly as she allowed herself to be hoisted onto his beast. The other two frantically mounted the remaining steeds. The wild darting of her eyes and flush in her cheeks were the only indication of her abject fear. 

Grasping his reins, Jaime fled Winterfell with her lady in his arms.

***

Even as they raced deeper into the Wolf’s Wood, they could hear the hounds baying somewhere far too close for comfort.

To Jaime’s right, Greyjoy released a small moan of despair; Sansa shivered in his arms, stabbing the panic in his chest in a little deeper.

The sky had opened, and heavy snow flakes were starting to cover the tracks of the horses – for that, the knight was grateful. But the progress of their mounts was slowly but surely beginning to falter, as the blanket of white made it harder and harder for them to advance.

Ruthlessly, Jaime continued to push the horses. By nightfall, he judged that they were leagues away from the castle, but regardless, the sounds of pursuit refused to abandon them.

“They will not stop,” Greyjoy gasped as they rode through the woods. “They will bring us back.”

“ _Be quiet._ ” Jaime ground out. He had once thought the boy reminded him of a shark on dry land, cunning and cruel in a low way. In a very distinctly _Greyjoy_ fashion, truth be told. He had hardly been surprised to hear that the ward of Winterfell had turned on the family that had all but adopted him. The family who treated him better than they did Ned Stark’s own bastard. Most everyone had thought him dead following the Bolton incursion. 

Whatever had been done to him in the ‘care’ of the Boltons had turned him into little more than a cowering rodent.

“Ramsay would have sent enough men to cover the countryside,” Sansa warned through chattering teeth. Without thinking, Jaime pulled her closer to his body as a means of warming her. He tried not to notice that the violent shudder vibrating through her had nothing to do with the cold; tried not to think how he could feel her ribs where his arms encased her, even through the layers of clothing separating them. 

If he thought too long on it, he would ride back, first to slaughter Ramsay, and then to hunt down Littlefinger, with the sole purpose of wiping that damnable smile off his face with the edge of his blade. 

“Greyjoy, how many arrows have you left?” he barked.

“Four,” the pathetic creature counted. Four - the Gods were smiling on them indeed. Laughing even.

“We ride for as long as we can. If we can’t ride, we walk, and if we can’t walk, we crawl.” Jaime declared with terrible finality. “Should they find us, we fight and if necessary, we die. But we will not be taken.”

A small sob escaped from the woman who shared his steed. Greyjoy nodded, eyes filled with dread. “I will aim for the dogs. I’d rather die by the sword than by the dogs.”

Jaime did not know how to respond to that. Instead, as the wind picked up, he whispered so only Sansa could hear, “This I swear: I will _never_ let you be taken back there.”

He spared a glance at her wide blue eyes tilted upwards at him. A grim understanding of what he truly meant passed between them. The girl did not protest, but rather, looked comforted by his fervency and sincerity.

 _Yes,_ he thought with a degree of rage that shocked him at her easy acceptance of his words, _those who had hurt her would surely pay for their crimes._

He would see to their due himself if he lived through this, he vowed as his arms unconsciously and protectively tightened around her trembling body.

***  
An hour later, Jaime could hear the sound of hooves fast approaching; furious barking surrounded them. 

With one final burst of speed, the group pulled ahead, before Jaime signaled for Podrick and Greyjoy to unhorse themselves. He positioned himself once again such that his body shielded Sansa’s.

“Ready yourselves.” 

Oathkeeper was drawn and ready to draw blood. Podrick gripped on to his shortsword nervously as Greyjoy nocked an arrow with uncertain hands.

Five of them exploded through the snowy trees, accompanied by two large hounds. The first arrow was loosed, and missed its mark completely, burying itself in a snow drift. But the dogs’ howls of alarm spooked the horses. Two of them veered away, galloping into the woods despite their rider’s curses.

The second and third arrow found their mark, and the last struck a horse’s leg, causing it to stumble with a frightened neigh, crushing the man that had the misfortune to be saddled on it.

The other two never stopped advancing, roaring in rage.

“Pod, slash at their horses. And stay alive,” Jaime commanded, never taking his eye off the horseman that was swinging at him with a broadsword. At the last moment, Jaime shoved Sansa backwards without looking and ducked down, stabbing upwards into the belly of the beast as it passed overhead. Warm blood rained down upon him.

The animal screeched in protest as Jaime lurched away as quickly as he could, narrowly missing the dying creature. Sword raised, he deflected his first blow, feeling the impact all through his body. Vaguely, he was aware that Pod was already disarmed, and was being backed against a tree.

Jaime had to end his own fight. 

Now. 

With his hooked hand, he slashed viciously downwards, catching the other man’s face and ripping it apart. Sansa cried out in horror even as Oathkeeper plunged into his mutilated foe’s chest. Without a moment to lose, he yanked his weapon free and spun around to rescue Podrick, only to see that Greyjoy had beaten him to it. The squire’s shortsword was buried hilt deep in the Bolton man’s gut.

The four of them turned to the sound of the returning horsemen who had been carried off.

Except now, there were three where there were only supposed to be two….

They were as good as dead, Jaime thought numbly, raising his sword for what he imagined would be the last time. 

Until the last rider at the very back raised his weapon and slashed at the one immediately in front. The man slumped and rolled off his steed, while the remaining pursuer turned to defend himself.

Unexpectedly, it was Greyjoy who ran and retrieved a bloody arrow from the body of a dead hound. Aiming carefully, he pulled his arm back…and released.

*** 

Jaime could see the moment Brienne realized her foe was no more, as she swung her blade down only to be met the dull thud of dead meat on her blade. 

The abandoned horses that still lived had galloped off, the thunder of their hooves receding into the distance.

Collecting his wits, he did not spare the wench so much as a nod. 

“We cannot linger. More will come.”

Glancing over at Sansa, he saw her pale face staring blankly at the red carnage staining the fresh snow. 

_It is not the time for her to lose her will_. He had seen that look before, on men he had commanded in the field. Men who laid down arms, more willing to be cut down before they took another step forwards. Gently, he crossed over to Sansa and urged her unresisting form up. With some difficulty, and some help from Podrick, he boosted her on his horse once again before climbing up after her.


	7. Oathkeeper

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime does something arguably stupid.
> 
> Jaime catches up on his news podcasts (from Sansa).
> 
> Sansa tells Jaime's some folk tales.
> 
> Jaime/Sansa moments happen.

They continued riding past sundown, until the light was a hair from fading into complete darkness, and it had grown too dark to safely guide their mounts. With the ever thickening layer of snow on the ground, even Jaime grew doubtful that they were still being followed, at least for the moment. Under a small outcropping which provided scant shelter, the small group made camp.

The Greyjoy whelp and Podrick scavenged for firewood and food as close to camp as was possible. It was all too easy to become lost in the dark, cold forest; the distinct howl of wolves from afar was as ample a warning as any, of new dangers as yet unseen. 

Jaime sat on a cold patch of earth doing his best to clean off his sword and wipe away the crusted blood which had accumulated all over it. His red cloak which had suffered so many indignities, and which had finally become almost entirely useless, was still valuable in this endeavor at least. Were it not that casting it off would have served naught but the Bolton hounds, the man would have discarded it miles ago. Out the corner of his eye, he could see Sansa on the ground, leaning against a tree some small distance away, staring into the distance at invisible phantoms.

Brienne, after fruitlessly pretending to fuss with her mount, finally approached and settled beside him.

“You did a good thing,” she said.

He pointedly ignored her, refusing to meet her gaze. 

“I did what I had to. I swore an oath and I kept it.” Brienne’s voice was hard. 

It had always been her stubborn streak, her dogged ability to stick to her word that he had admired. It was also not the first time Jaime felt the sharp edge of her strong loyalties as she used them against him. It was however, the first time that he considered she might become a true risk to himself and their mission. A commander was nothing without guaranteed certainties in his men, and a soldier, only as good as his word.

“You have saved my life in the past. Twice, including today,” he said finally. “For those reasons alone, I will not hold this desertion against you.”

The wench nodded, although the defiant spark remained in her wide blue eyes. For all her skill and her bravery, he could see that she had much to learn if she ever hoped to be truly respected on the field.

“If you ever leave again at such a juncture…” he stopped his movements and looked her in the eye. “Do not bother returning. Do you and I have an understanding?”

The old admiration flooded back as she held his gaze.

“I understand.” 

“Is it done then?” he asked.

She had no need to ask what he meant. “Yes. It is finished. I saw to it myself.”

Jaime considered her words. If Stannis was dead, then the Boltons stood victorious, which was an unwelcome thought indeed. 

The tension having dissipated between the two of them, Brienne turned to look at Sansa, her concern unmasked as she asked, “Is she well?”

“No.” he replied frankly. “I would suggest…perhaps as you are the only one here who can ask her questions we cannot…” he frantically tried to remember his manners as he considered how to approach the intimate nature of his request.

“You mean to say that I am a woman, and thus the only one who can truly see to her.” the wench eyed him with a mixture of amusement and disgust. “Though I’m a lady auroch who has not shared two words with her of course.”

“Would it ease your worries to know the truths of what transpired between I and my Lord Husband?” Sansa’s voice rang out like a bell in the dark night. It held a certain dead quality in it that discomfited Jaime.

The Maid of Tarth flushed, while Jaime’s eyes were cast down in embarrassment. The other two had returned. Podrick hurried to start a fire, and remarkably, accomplished it far quicker than was expected of him. Greyjoy on the other hand, looked tentatively between Jaime and Sansa.

The woman in question walked slowly towards them. 

“My Lady…” Brienne started. 

Without thinking, Jaime stood up, meeting her on his feet. “My Lady…you will have your revenges. This I swear.”

She looked searchingly, disbelievingly into his eyes. 

“How?” her voice broke slightly, the only indication of the battle within her. He could not claim to know her heart, but he suspected she faced a conflict he knew all too well - between forging on and giving in to the urge to scream. It heartened Jaime to know she was still fighting somewhere deep inside the icy blue depths of her eyes. 

For reasons Jaime would never be able to explain thereafter, in the darkness and the ice, he plunged Oathkeeper’s sharp tip into the frozen ground at her feet. Gaze never leaving hers, he knelt.

“I swear to you as I swore to your mother before you, by the old Gods and the new, I will see you to safety. I swear to you that I will keep you from harm and serve you until the day I know you and yours are truly safe, for as long as I draw breath.”

“I…” Sansa’s eyes widened. Jaime’s green eyes bore into hers, unexpectedly desperate to hear what she had to say. Beside them, Brienne watched the proceedings with her jaw hanging slightly. 

“Sansa, you must not trust his words. He’s a _Lannister_ ,” Greyjoy said, every word a strike Jaime could not hide from. “They are our _enemies_. Robb would never…”

“Robb. You would speak his name?” Sansa asked the wretched man in disbelief.

“I…”

“I thank you for your counsel,” she said to the creature who visibly quelled under her cold, hard gaze. “And for your service.”

Jaime never moved as he awaited her judgement.

“I vow…I vow…that you shall always have a place by my hearth…” Sansa looked to collect herself as she started reciting the words. White flakes of snow settled on her hair like a crown of ice. “…and meat and mead at my table, and I pledge to ask no service of you that might bring you into dishonour. I swear it by the old gods and the new.”

The man was suddenly overcome by the most absurd notion that he ought to stand and wrap his ruined cloak of Lannister colours around her, before claiming her lips in a kiss. 

Instead, the knight scrambled to his feet and looked away. Brienne reached out and squeezed his shoulder reassuringly, lips twitching as if laughing at a jape he did not yet understand.

***

He set the first watch, insisting that the group get what rest they could. It was more important, he thought, that Brienne get the most rest out of anyone as she was most able to keep them safe.

Eventually, tired of pacing back and forth, Jaime settled himself down as quietly as he could, within sight of the small fire that continued to smoulder. The snow had stopped and the clouds had rolled further North. The world was utterly silent - even the wolves had quieted. 

He heard her footsteps before he saw her.

“My Lady, we have a long ride ahead of us. I suggest returning to the fire and getting some sleep.” he focused his gaze towards the stars that lit the cold wintry sky. 

“My heart is still pounding madly,” Sansa said, settling beside him. “Sleep evades me.”

“It’ll pass,” he said, turning to look at her wan profile. In the flickering light, her bruises pocked her fair skin like black shadows. “I promise.”

“Why did you come back for me?” she asked after a moment.

“I swore an oath,” he said simply.

She shook her head. “I was a fool. Such a fool as there ever was,”

“After what my family has inflicted upon yours, perhaps it was I who was the fool, thinking you’d willingly follow me,” bitterness and weariness coated his every word.

“Your brother was nothing but kind to me,” she said softly. “I was glad to hear of his escape.” she continued. 

The anointed knight froze.

Sansa looked closely at him. “You don’t know, of course you don’t.” 

“Tell me,” he said, not daring to let himself hope. “Tell me what you know. Please.”

“Ramsay thought it a great jape to enlighten me with news from King’s Landing, of what had befallen my…my former husband. I wept for Lord Tyrion, truly I did. He had never…he would never have…” Sansa stopped speaking for a moment. “But the maester who saw to my…who saw to me. He pitied me, and told me of another raven that had arrived: Tyrion has escaped from the Black Cells.”

The spark of hope was now a raging fire in his heart; he opened his mouth to thank her for the tidings, but the look in her eyes gave him pause. 

“There is more…” she hesitated. 

_Cersei. Something has befallen to Cersei._ The cruel dread began to creep back. 

“Tell me.” he insisted through gritted teeth.

“Ser Jaime…your father…” she tried to find the words. “They think Tyrion murdered the Hand of the King as he was escaping the Red Keep.”

He sat in stunned silence. 

“My lord?” Sansa sounded almost concerned. She reached a delicate hand out and stopped short of touching his own, hovering just above his skin. He could feel the warmth emanating from her.

“My lady, I believe…” he choked out at last. “…I believe you need find your rest before the morrow. I bid you good night.”

Sansa nodded stiffly as she stood up. She turned to walk away, but hesitated at the last.

“For what it’s worth…I am sorry,” her voice was soft. “And Ser?” 

He looked up at her.

“Thank you.” 

With a soft rustle of long skirts, she left him alone the darkness.

***

In the morning, as Jaime saddled up, he thought to suggest that Sansa share a horse with the Lady Brienne for the sake of common decency. Before he could speak any such thing however, she had already climbed onto his steed, settling herself between him and his reins.

Brienne and Podrick broke up the remainder of their meagre camp with practiced efficiency, and seemed not to notice that anything was wrong. But Greyjoy cast them the same mournful look Jaime loathed.

“Unless you’re planning on waiting for the Bolton men to find you, I suggest you get a move on,” he ordered curtly, turning away.

As they continued their journey North, Sansa said quietly, “Ser Jaime, I am sorry my tidings caused you grief,”

“Jaime,” he said.

She looked confused.

“Just…Jaime…” he looked stoically ahead. “Given the circumstance, I believe we can lose the formalities. Don’t you?”

Sansa did not respond, nor did she return his forced smile. In silence, they sat front to back, riding towards what they both fervently hoped was safe haven.

***

Nobody questioned Jaime’s insistence that the group was to keep off the broad roadways; instead, they moved carefully, deep amongst the trees, slowly trotting the horses through ever thickening snow drifts. What should have been a fortnight’s journey was undoubtedly stretching days, if not weeks more. However, if it kept them safe from curious eyes, if it kept the group away from the hunting hounds undoubtedly still seeking them, Jaime would have gladly taken fifty years to reach Jon Snow.

The days were short and the air grew colder with every mile. Their exertions kept them reasonably warm, although Jaime worried constantly if it would ultimately be enough. Food was - out of everything - the least of their worries. Hares were plentiful and so unused to men, easy to trap. Snowmelt quenched their thirsts and dead trees, dry as bone in the wintry air, provided fuel. 

After nightfall, outside the circle of firelight which Pod carefully nursed, it was an unspoken understanding that yellow predatory eyes were tracking their every move, only waiting for them to leave the protection of the fire to strike.

“I’ve heard of strange folk up in these Northern woods,” Podrick said one night, ankles crossed, hands clasped over his shins. “I heard they’re not actually…well…folk.”

“Old wive’s tales,” Brienne snorted, taking a bite from her dinner.

“Perhaps,” Jaime nodded solemnly. “Tyrion came back from the Wall, speaking of wild stories the men themselves were spreading.”

Speaking of his brother no longer brought him the same grief as it once did. In fact, thinking of Tyrion did…nothing. A numbness had been growing in his chest, spreading within his heart, the same way the chill was spread without. 

When he cast his thoughts to Tywin Lannister, all he could truly muster were memories of a disapproving frown, and a cold twist of thin lips.

_My son._

Sansa said nothing, choosing instead to nibble on a bony leg, while their fifth companion, as usual, brooded like a malignant shadow. 

That night, when the rest of the group was asleep, Jaime stared blankly out into the darkness, sword resting across his lap. After some time, someone scrabbled clumsily beside him and sat down on the cold ground.

“Old Nan used to tell us tales,” Sansa hugged her knees close, not looking at him. “She told us that these woods were filled with the Children of the Forest, the beings who lived here long before men ever set foot on Westeros.”

“Perhaps you would tell me a tale.” Jaime said after a moment, when it was clear she had no intention of leaving his side.

After a long silence, he was tempted to look over to see if she had fallen asleep. But then, she started speaking once again, her voice faraway.

“There was the tale of the man who stumbled on a group of Children on a hillside. He watched as they played a strange game, involving steel and wool. After a while, the man fell asleep. When he awoke, his beard fell to his knees, and his hair brushed his ankles - both were as white as the driven snow. When he entered his house, seeking his wife, he found instead, a young man he did not know. Running to the nearby village for succour, he found no face he recognized…until he met an old woman who had witnessed at least sixty name days…and who called him ‘Papa’.”

Jaime waited.

“The man had slept for half a century without ever knowing it,” Sansa concluded. 

“Even your tales are as dire as the people who live here,” he remarked drily. 

“Well…there was the _other_ tale of the lazy handmaid who mysteriously found her chores completed every morning, although she lifted nary a finger. So grateful was she, she lay on the ground and spread her thighs one night, to show her appreciation to her benefactor. He came when the moon was high, and never had she seen a fairer creature. He put his…tool…in her as she screamed her satisfaction and her gratitude. When morning came, he left her with a babe. Never again did he return thereafter, only leaving her a sharp toothed bastard to nurse at her teat, though surely she cried sore.” 

The knight’s eyes were wide in shock. The tale was tame in comparison to the bawdier rhymes he had heard in the barracks. But it was the narrator he could not keep from gaping at - surely this was not the proper lady he had heard of, with her impenetrable manners. Sansa looked back at him, eyes calm as glass and features composed as always…but for the the distinct quirk of her lips. 

Without meaning to, he felt the laughter swell out of his chest. Her smile widened in answer ever so slightly. 

To his own surprise, Jaime realized how much he liked looking upon her smile. It was like a warm breath of summer in the midst of the frigid wasteland they were huddled together in.

Before he could beg for another tale, Sansa was scrambling up and hurrying away from him, back to her place beside the wench. 

***

The fears of pursuit were starting to fade, although they remained vigilant nevertheless. They had been travelling for over a fortnight, when at last, they saw the tips of a great white monolith peeking over the trees.

The wench and Podrick took to scouting ahead, and steering the party away from drifts that piled higher than a man’s head. Slowly and wearily, Jaime and Sansa trailed behind, with Greyjoy hanging even further back, ostracizing himself more with every mile covered. 

While he was getting used to the other man’s odd stares and uncomfortable presence, Jaime never let his guard down where Greyjoy was concerned. There was a manic brokenness in his eyes that caused him to fear that the whelp would ride back to Winterfell, bringing back with him, the full strength of the Boltons.

The knight also had much time to ruminate upon his own brother, and the deeds that had supposedly been committed. If the reports were true, did that mean that Tyrion was his enemy? Had he stayed in King’s Landing, would his father still be alive? Would he have had to kill his brother in defence of their father?

More uncomfortably, he considered the notion that with Tywin and Joffrey dead, and with Tommen not of age to truly rule, Cersei was now the default monarch…

It was a notion that frightened him, more than he would have ever admitted aloud. 

***

When they were finally only a full day’s ride away from the Wall, Jaime crested a hill as the sunlight broke through a layer of clouds, illuminating the frozen forest below in a myriad of crystalline colours. Sansa drew in a sharp breath, staring at the landscape in wonder.

“It is indeed beautiful,” Jaime conceded, his breath coming in puffs of white smoke. His lips had cracked painfully in the last few days, making both eating and speaking more of a trial.

“I…” her voice was filled with nameless emotion. “I had forgotten this.”

“What right have I to call myself a Northerner or a Stark, to have forsaken this?” she asked. 

At that, Jaime lifted his only hand with a rusty chuckle.

“My lady, do you see this?” he meant the small but unmissable crescent scar between his thumb and forefinger. “This is where you bit me, in the woods by the Vale.”

Sansa’s gaze whipped around, an apology already on her lips. However, the look on his face silenced her.

“You still have plenty of Wolf left in you yet, Sansa,” he said very softly.

Her smile, when it came to the fore once again, made Jaime feel as if he were surfacing from a deep abyss after an eon of drowning.


	8. Exhale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Sansa have their first fight.
> 
> Also, 'and this was how Jaime ruined the reunion between Jon and Sansa'.
> 
> Warning: more explicit Firefly references are coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone has been quite kind with their comments...I do hope I continue to deliver!

Chapter 8

_“It never goes smooth. How come it never goes smooth.” Firefly, Safe_

***

_“You left me for that stupid, insipid little whore,” Cersei accused, lounging in her solar. Her silk robe was slipping off her shoulder, revealing tantalizing flesh. It caused his blood to pound in an all too familiar torrent._

Jaime was dreaming. He knew he was dreaming because he was whole, both hands reaching out to push the fabric completely and utterly off his sister’s alabaster skin.

_“I left you to fulfil a promise,” he murmured, lips against her throat, nipping downwards to a pert nipple._

_“The only one who should own your loyalty is me,” her tone was sharp, even as her long fingers twined into his hair. Cersei had always been unrelenting._

_His hips thrust forward, seeking the warmth between her legs._

_“Jaime,” she gasped, rocking against him, the cant of her hips as familiar as the planes of her face. He had learned her body’s rhythms since they were but children. “Do it now, do me now…”_

_With a cry, he spent himself and looked down…only to find blue eyes instead of green, red tresses instead of gold._

_“Jaime…” Sansa whispered, fingers caressing his cheekbones as she panted urgently beneath him, her face flushed with pleasure._

The former Kingsguard awoke, eyes wide and unseeing at first.

“He’s gone,” Brienne’s distressed announcement brought him to his feet immediately. He looked at their small party, and indeed, the group was one short, both a person and a horse.

“I fell asleep at my post.” Podrick sounded miserable as he stood with his head hung low, his fingers twisting anxiously. “There is no excuse.”

“The Others take that kraken scum,” Jaime growled, stomping out the remains of their fire, causing small flakes of ashes to float in the air. Close as they were to Castle Black, he had no confidence that their chances had not already been jeopardized.

“He’s travelling East. He’s going home.” Sansa’s calm voice broke through the fray.

“What?” Jaime demanded, staring at her uncomprehendingly.

“My lady, I pray, please tell us what you know.” Brienne inquired gently, though her eyes were narrowed. She shared a suspicious glance with the former Kingsguard.

“Theon spoke with me last night as we made camp - he informed me of his intentions to travel back towards the Iron Islands at dawn.” Sansa hoisted herself onto Jaime’s horse and looked expectantly at the knight.

“Podrick, by the time this is over, I swear I will have turned you into something resembling usefulness.” Brienne sounded exasperated as she turned away, mounting her own steed. “There is no time to lose. We ride.”

“Why did you not think to tell us?” Jaime asked as they rode, ill at ease despite Sansa’s assurance that Greyjoy was moving East rather than South. Any harbour to the East would require brushing past Winterfell.

“I did not think it of consequence.” Sansa could not keep the defensive edge from creeping into her voice. “I do not imagine that Castle Black would welcome him. And I could see nobody here cared for his presence, as it were.”

Jaime was urging his horse into as fast a trot as he dared, praying to any God that would listen, that his mount would not stumble over unseen dangers buried in the snow. It would not do for their already tired horse to break its leg, potentially setting their travels back even further.

“I don’t like him. But more than that, I don’t trust him not to run to the nearest Bolton spy and sell us back to them.” his mind would not abandon all the ways in which he considered the whelp complicit. Back in the kennels of Winterfell, was he not standing by when the Horse Master was brought down? Had he not seen Sansa’s suffering? Or had he made a choice, to allow the Bolton Bastard his brutal games?

Though the small cuts near her brow were healing, the cruel marks were still clearly visible.

“Jaime, what Theon did to my home…what he did to Robb was unforgivable.” Sansa spoke as if the words pained her physically. “But if you knew what Ramsay was capable of…if you had any idea at all of what Theon suffered, then you’d know he would rather die than turn back towards Winterfell.”

“That may be so,” Jaime said. “But My Lady, I would have liked to have been informed of what his intentions were. Waking to find that he had deserted our party while we slept, stealing away like a common thief…surely, you must see how it appears.”

“Do you seek to govern my every word and thought?” Sansa’s tone could have frozen the air itself.

“No Sansa,” he replied patiently. “But I do need us to be aligned. All of us.”

“I ask for your forgiveness in causing you distress you My Lord.” Sansa’s mannerisms suddenly shifted. She sounded the way she did when she was presented before any member of his family. “I am but a thoughtless girl who ought to know better.”

Startled, Jaime looked down at her, but found her face as composed as a lifeless carving.

“Gods Sansa,” he bit out as shock gave way to anger. “I cannot serve you if I don’t know enough to protect you.”

Slapping his reins, he pushed onwards recklessly.

The days before had brought an unexpected closeness between the two. As they had traversed through the never-changing landscape, her body pressed against him for warmth, they had conversed, filling the silences to distract themselves from the misery of travel.

He had learned of her childhood foibles in the cold plains of the North, and she had heard of the misspent hours of his youth spent exploring the caves of The Rock.

“The servants would chide us when Father wasn’t looking - ‘the tides will rise if you linger too long, and then what will you do?’ they used to warn.” Jaime had laughed at the memory, though it hurt his throat to do so.

“Hullen used to tell me if I wandered too far from the Castle, a Wildling would capture me for his supper,” she had responded, allowing herself a wistful smile.

When the winds were too cold for them to speak, they struggled without speech, intimately aware how close to the edge of death they danced.

Now, to have her hiding behind her manners once again felt as if she had as good as struck him. This was Sansa Stark as he had met her, when she had been presented as his good-sister - when she had hid her fear and her loathing of the Lannisters behind a mask of empty courtesies.

***

By late afternoon, they were well past the periphery of Mole’s Town, which stood ominously as an empty and burnt husk. With nothing left between themselves and Castle Black, the knight relented, leading the small group back onto the King’s Road.

“What if he won’t receive me?” Sansa asked, eyes gazing Northwards with both anticipation and dread. It had been the first thing she had said to him in hours.

“I can’t imagine why he would turn you away.” he said mildly, although he found himself recalling how the bastard had been shunted to the back of the Great Hall during the feast prepared in Robert’s honour. Even Greyjoy had occupied a better place far closer to the High Table.

“I…” Sansa hesitated. “I wasn’t kind when I was a child. Not to Jon.”

“He is your best hope.” Jaime said bluntly. “We cannot turn back. There is nowhere I can bring you where you will be safe.”

If his words comforted her - which he strongly doubted they did - she did nothing to show it.

***

The great wooden doors creaked open slowly. Above them in the crenelated gaps, Jaime could see the gleam of arrows pointing at the group, ready to rain death on their heads.

Brienne cast Jaime a wary look, and through an unspoken understanding, she rode in first, followed by Podrick. Slowly, guarding his movements with care, Jaime and Sansa entered last.

The courtyard was silent. Jaime searched the crowd of strange and unfriendly faces, unable to dodge the fear that they may have come all this way for nothing. Some of the men leered at the woman who shared his saddle, causing his fingers to itch for the hilt of his sword. The wench looked upon all of them with disdain, openly fingering her dagger menacingly.

Sansa slid off his horse abruptly and started walking towards the keep. Alarmed, he almost reached out a hand to stop her, before realizing to whom she was approaching. Jon Snow stood on a platform, looking at the woman as if he were seeing a ghost.

A much missed and beloved ghost.

The scene that ensued was bittersweet; the embrace between the siblings spoke volumes of their loss, their grief, their joy at holding each other…Jaime looked away, feeling almost as if he were intruding on something private. Beside him, the wench looked awed, and cast him a smile that lit her features up.

He wanted to respond in kind, wanted to let immense relief wash over him, but a part of him bristled at the closeness between brother and sister.

 _No…they were not afflicted as he and Cersei were_ , he reminded himself, and then asked himself why it should matter in the least.

And then, Ned Stark’s son looked up and locked eyes with him. Which was when Jaime found himself knocked off his horse by a flurry of white fur, sharp teeth, and red eyes. Distantly, he could hear the wench’s cry of shock, and Podrick’s panicked yelp, but he could not really find it in himself to assure them of his well being, particularly as he wasn’t actually sure himself.

The beast loomed over him, drool dripping slowly out of its snarling jaws that looked as if they would fit neatly around his head. The beast’s breath was fetid, like the stench of a charnel house. Or - like the smell of an animal used to ripping apart squirming prey in its vice-like jaws.

Jaws of which were lowering themselves closer to his neck.

“Jon please,” he could hear Sansa pleading.

“He’s Jaime Lannister,” the bastard sounded aghast.

“I am _aware_ who he is.” Sansa cried impatiently. “He saved my life. He saved my life over and over, risking his own to bring me to you.”

There was a pause, and over the low growl of the Dire Wolf on his chest, he heard a grunt.

“Ghost, to me.”

The damned thing snapped its teeth, red eyes still fixed on his green ones. As suddenly as it had set itself upon him, the animal bounded off, hind paws hard digging into his body as it departed.

Coughing, he sat up and found Sansa crouched beside him, eyes rimmed red with unshed tears. Absurdly, he thought to comfort her although he was certain he was the one who had been a breath away from meeting the Stranger. Brienne knelt to his other side, studying him closely. He could see the relief in her blue eyes once she determined that he was largely unharmed - in her hand, he could see that she had drawn her sword.

Foolish wench, he thought with grudging appreciation. They’d have peppered her with arrows before she took so much as a step.

Looking up, he found Jon eyeing him with open dislike. His dark eyes flickered to Sansa, who seemed determined to remain by Jaime’s side. A frown creased his forehead, as the white beast paced beside its master, glowering balefully.

“Well met Bastard,” Jaime croaked hoarsely.

“That’s Lord Commander to you,” Jon growled.

“Lord Commander Bastard - doesn’t quite roll off the tongue,” Jaime stumbled up, hoping the shaking in his legs did not show. Jon snarled and took a heavy step towards him, his sword rasping against his sheath as he started to draw.

“That’s enough,” Sansa cried out. “Please, both of you.”

The two men glared at each other, each refusing to look away.

“Sansa, I believe I shall find my lodging elsewhere. I have delivered you to your brother. My duty here is done - you are safe.” Jaime said, not looking over at her. If he had, he might have caught the mildly infuriated look in her eyes. Jon on the other hand, did not miss it, and seemed about to throw a childish tantrum over what was about to happen.

“Don’t be stupid,” Sansa snapped. “Just because we’ve made it this far, doesn’t mean Ramsay isn’t still hunting for those who aided me. You haven’t anywhere else to go.”

The Lord Commander of Castle Black looked faintly mutinous. “It’s _my_ keep. I didn’t agree to shelter a Lannister.”

“He saved my life. I wouldn’t be here if not for him.” Sansa repeated, her voice becoming softer as she walked slowly back towards her older brother. “Please Jon. Suffer him for my sake.”

Jaime could recognize silent sibling warfare when he saw it. Half the Night’s Watch in the castle could see it, and they all suddenly seemed eager to be busy elsewhere. He could also tell the moment Jon was bested by his wisp of a sister by the defeated slump of his shoulders.

“Really, I’m not that unpleasant,” he started silkily, unable to help himself. “In fact, once you get to know me, I’m even considered…”

“Be silent.” Brienne nudged him in his bruised ribs. Hard.

Overruled by the women in their midst, both men sullenly continued to stared at each other, until finally, Jon said,

“I offer you the freedom of Castle Black, and I will have rooms and baths prepared for you.” he said at last. Then, he added with a small smirk, “And Lannister, I can _smell_ you from here.”

The former Lord Commander of the Kingsguard had absolutely nothing to say in return.


	9. Graceless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime hears some bad news.
> 
> Then there's more bad news.
> 
> Then he basically gets the worst news.
> 
> Warning: a couple of lines lifted right out of the show.

The room could barely have fit one, but somehow, the able stewards of the Night’s Watch had crammed two narrow pallets in it, along with a small wooden tub half-filled with rapidly cooling water. Washing himself as best as he was able, there was a sense of liberation as the accumulated dirt sloughed off of his skin.

Podrick - whom he was meant to share his sleeping quarters with - was absent, affording him some much missed privacy. The hook usually strapped to his right arm lay uselessly on his side of the room, beside a razor blade that had been helpfully provided.

Thoughtfully, the knight picked the blade up, and using the dirty glass hanging on the wall, he started very carefully, to remove his untrimmed beard, which had become a tangled, filthy mess. 

_His duty was done and dispensed. There was no reason for him to linger; Sansa was safe in her brother’s keeping and he had every freedom now to return to Cersei’s side where he belonged._

With every stroke of the razor, he repeated that mantra to himself over and over, willing himself to believe that his oath to the Stark women had been fulfilled.

Donning the clean clothing laid out in a neat stack, Jaime sat on the thin mattress, running a tired hand over his shaven visage. His old clothes and ruined cloak were, with any luck, burning to a crisp elsewhere in the castle. 

There was a knock at the closed door, but before he could demand to be left alone for a little longer, the wench pushed her way in, shutting the door firmly behind her. There was a look on her face that made him sit up at attention.

“I’ve caught wind of some unsettling facts…” she started. “Jaime, there was a mutiny in the ranks only a few days ago.”

Fear flexed its fingers around his heart as he stood up. 

“The mutineers turned on the Lord Commander who would not have taken the castle back without the help of the Wildlings. Rumour has it that he is abandoning his post.” she continued in hushed tones.

Wildings South of the Wall, assisting the Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch, Jaime considered disbelievingly. Surely, they lived in strange times.

“There’s more…”Brienne continued. 

_More?_

With the look of someone who had just been force-fed a lemon, the wench told him of the other occupants of Castle Black: Stannis’s Hand, the so-called ‘Onion Knight’, and the Red Woman who some whispered was a witch.

“I fear it is not truly safe here.” Brienne spoke his thoughts aloud. “Not for Lady Sansa.”

Jaime squeezed his eyes shut in frustration, feeling the pounding headache building. In hindsight, perhaps he had been a bit too naïve and hopeful, thinking there was safe haven anywhere at all. The Wall was manned by thieves, murderers and rapers – dishonourable men whose choices were the gallows or the Wall. If Jon Snow had already been betrayed once by those blackguards, should a second mutiny result in his death, it would certainly leave Sansa in a worse place than where he had found her.

The knight cursed at his own foolishness.

“The Lord Commander seems healthy for all that,” Brienne puzzled aloud. “And he seems to be in control for the moment.”

“Let us find rest and shelter while we can.” He said tiredly, unable to bring himself to think of new strategies. “As long as Jon Snow lives, the Lady will be safe. Though I have to say…”

She waited expectantly.

“Given your luck, if we wait around long enough, the Dragon Queen herself will be along any minute…you do seem to have crossed every blessed individual’s path, haven’t you?”

He left her gaping after him like an indignant goldfish. The sight cheered him a little, but it wasn’t quite enough to dispel the dark foreboding that hung over them.

***

Stepping into the large hall, his eyes roved over his dismal surroundings until he found a flash of red in front of the wide hearth. Sansa’s blue eyes were fixated on the flames, while Jon sat at a table surrounded by his men, casting his sister indecipherable looks every few seconds.

 _Has sweet turned to sour so quickly?_ Jaime wondered, approaching where the woman had settled. He had thought the siblings would be inseparable, after being kept apart for so long.

“My lady?” he asked carefully, masking the unease being stoked in his mind.

“He will not listen,” she said softly. He waited for her to continue. “He has no wish to retake Winterfell.”

Of all the tidings he had expected to receive this night, her words left him reeling. “Retake Winterfell?”

“You cannot expect me to sit here while the Boltons tear down everything my father, and his fathers before him built,” Sansa said vehemently, turning to her gaze upon him. “You saw what they did. You saw how they desecrated my home, hanging the people we were supposed to protect, while ripping warm skin from their still-living flesh.”

“I saw.” He agreed, kneeling down before her seated form. “But I also saw the might of the Boltons. They defeated Stannis easily – Stannis Baratheon, once the most able Commander in the Seven Kingdoms.”

“The North remembers.” She said. “And they will remember it better if he reminded them of their loyalties to the only living son of Ned Stark.”

 _The North remembers, but cowers before the Bolton sigil all the same._ Her next words brought his heart to a stuttering stop.

“If he will not go, I will.” Her pale face was alight with fierce determination.

“You cannot. You _must_ not.” Jaime reached out now and grasped her shoulder. “Sansa, I did not come so far to see you throw your life away for some foolish notion.”

“It is _not_ foolish. Jaime, ride with me.” she implored, her hands raising up, almost but not quite cupping his face. “With your skill, and my name, we can regain the North together.”

“I cannot keep you safe if you choose to leap into a battle head first without looking.” He desperately tried to make her see sense. “I swore to you that I would protect you, and I mean to keep my oath.”

“I hope I’m not interrupting anything Kingslayer,” Jon said from behind Jaime. His tone was far less hostile than it had been. Jaime released Sansa and stood up to face Jon, refusing to allow their audience a chance to witness his displeasure at the moniker. In his hand, Jon held out a parchment, and from the look in his eyes, nothing good was written upon it. “There has been a raven from Winterfell.”

***

Walking on the bridge overlooking the courtyard of Castle Black, the quiet of the night soothed Jaime, although he knew it was all an illusion. Within the walls of the keep, men were engaged in furious preparation for the following day; mostly unseen, guards patrolled the peripheries, blending into the shadows.

Oathkeeper hung heavy on his hip as he gazed at the shadowed training grounds before him.

“Lannister,” Jon called, stepping into sight a few feet away.

“I was wondering if you were going to linger in the shadows all night,” Jaime leaned against the railing, not shifting his gaze. 

“Did you want for diversion?” Jon asked drily, coming to stand beside him. “My men may not be as eloquent as the fine company you’re accustomed to, back in King’s Landing.”

“Is this the part where you ask me to stay away from your sister?” the knight asked, his voice taut with anticipation for the verbal sparring he was sure would follow.

“No.” Jon stated.

Jaime turned to him, unable to contain his surprise.

“After everything I’ve seen, I don’t have it in me to keep holding to old grudges,” Jon’s dark eyes stared into space. If he squinted, Jaime supposed he saw a likeness to Ashara Dayne in Jon’s features. “There is too much at stake, for me to worry about petty things.”

“Petty?” Jaime asked, quirking a golden brow.

“Petty.” The other man stated firmly. “The dead are marching against the living, with the Night King at their fore. Do you think it matters anymore, any of our scheming and plotting and our little revenges?”

He couldn’t help himself. The urge started in his belly, and bubbled past his chest. Finally, Jaime bent over, holding on to his sides as he shouted his laughter.

“Have you lost your wits?” Jon asked in consternation.

“I believe it is the world that's gone quite mad,” Jaime replied, mirth subsiding. “Dead men Marching. Wildling allies. Dragons to the East. Truly, it is a wondrous time to be alive.”

“Don’t forget the Lannister Kingslayer who rode off to save Sansa Stark” Jon said without an ounce of humour in his voice.

The two stared at each other for a moment, before they both broke into manic guffaws.

“My sister certainly has changed,” Jon said at last, when their laughter finally died. “I always thought she preferred pretty dresses over…well, riding to battle.”

“Being kept a prisoner for years will change a person.” Jaime observed mildly. “Even if the cages were gilded. Although Ramsay Bolton…”

The Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch grimaced.

“I don’t trust you Ser,” he said bluntly. “But what you did for Sansa…it is not something to be treated lightly. I would repay you anything that is in my power to give.”

“That letter…” Jaime said, letting the moment pass. “Forgive me, for it is not my place to say, but Ramsay Bolton must be answered…petty or not as that bastard’s challenge may be.” 

“It is _not_ in fact your place to say. But you are also correct - Bolton’s challenge must be met. I have to save Rickon…or at least I have to try.” Jon slumped against a column, looking to have aged twenty years in a second. “Furthermore…if Winterfell falls, Westeros herself will not stand much longer.”

From his vantage point, Jaime observed two familiar shadows slinking towards a side gate. Nodding politely to his companion, he turned on his heel and started strolling away.

“Ser, it is time I bid you good night. It has been a long journey, spent sleeping on cold dirt, and I for one, look forward to spending a night in a real bed.” Jaime left Jon alone on the bridge with his thoughts.

***

The moon was full, allowing him to follow the two women with relative ease through the woods. Fresh snow on the ground muffled his steps as he trailed behind them. 

“…don’t trust him. I don’t like this My Lady…” he heard faintly.

“I don’t trust nor like him but…”

The breeze carried away the rest of what they were saying, but it was enough to make Jaime wary of what he would find. Later, he would have to speak with the both of them on the dubious wisdom of sneaking off in the middle of the night without informing another soul. For now, his left hand found the hilt of his dagger under the heavy furred cloak he had stolen from the castle armoury. 

At length, he found himself on the edge of a barren field, staring at a broken-down house, the remnants of some abandoned farmstead. He heard them before he saw them, but it was the third voice that nearly caused him to barrel his way into the building with a bare blade…had he not listened to the words being spoken.

“Did he beat you?” Littlefinger rasped, in answer to Sansa’s harsh admissions. “Did he cut you?”

Jaime’s felt as if the air had been pulled out of his lungs as he listened to the litany of hurts and humiliations Sansa endured in stark detail. In all their time spent together, they had fastidiously avoided speaking of her ordeal; or at least, _he_ had, in fear that it would be too much for her to bear.

It was worse than listening to the threats Ramsay had made as Jon read each aloud. It was worse because all that they spoke of now had already been committed, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing he could do to undo the past.

“I can still feel it. I don't mean in my tender heart, what he did still pains me so. I can still feel what he did, in my body.” 

Perhaps he was himself craven, but he found he could take no more of it. Shame filled him even as he strode towards the doorway, to realize It was not she who could not bear her pain.

Stepping through an opening that had once been a doorway, Jaime grabbed the smaller man and slammed him against a crumbling wall in one smooth movement. He could feel the muscles of Baelish’s throat convulsing in terror.

“My lord,” Littlefinger wheezed, eyes darting everywhere in panic.

“Jaime,” Brienne said warningly. She was not truly trying to stop him though, he noticed. 

“Tell me, why shouldn’t Ser Jaime or Lady Brienne make a corpse of you right here and now?” Sansa’s voice broke through his red haze. Jaime looked over his shoulder, but her eyes were fixed upon Littlefinger.

“I didn’t know. I swear to you I didn’t know what he was like…” the man choked out.

“Sansa?” Jaime’s voice was low and dangerous. “One word and I will finish this right now.”

They listened to the sound of Littlefinger gagging, trying to find any measure of air. Desperate fingers clawed at the hand that held him in place. With savage satisfaction, Jaime squeezed his fingers just a little tighter.

“Let him go.” Sansa said from behind. 

“Why?” Jaime demanded, itching to slice the man’s face open with his hook. 

“Because he’s not worth it.” she said. “He’s just another rodent who will find his due.”

Reluctantly, the knight released his hold and allowed the smaller man to slump to the ground. 

“My Lady, I had come to you bearing good news,” Littlefinger croaked as soon as he was able to catch his breath. “Brynden Tully - he has retaken Riverrun. If you have need of him, I’m sure your uncle would not hesitate to come to your aid,”

Jaime stared down at the smaller man in disgust.

“And…” he scrambled to his feet. The silver mockingbird at his neck glittered in the moonlight streaming in through the cracks in the ceiling. “I came - truly - to pledge the Knights of the Eyrie to your cause. Yohn Royce and I already have the men gathered just beyond Moat Cailin, and await only your word...”

“Your gifts have thus far, been as poison.” Sansa pronounced softly. “Petyr, I pray you don’t mistake my mercy for forgiveness…”

With that, Sansa turned and began to walk away, out of the shack. 

“My lord, I am glad our paths have crossed,” Petyr rasped as Jaime made to follow. “I have news for you as well, unfortunate though the message is. It’s Myrcella. The Sand Snakes of Dorne have seen fit to send her head back to King’s Landing.”

***

_“Have you met the Princess,” Robert’s voice was soft and filled with a kind of awe that was alien to all who served in the Red Keep._

_“Yes,” Jaime hid his anger well; by now he was well practised at it. He forced himself to keep from snatching the babe out of the interloper’s arms._

_“She’s perfect,” the King said. On the large bed behind them, Cersei lay slumbering on her bed as the matrons cleaned away the bloody sheets, and fussed over their much weakened Queen. “Look upon your niece Kingslayer, tell me she’s not the most beautiful creature you’ve ever laid eyes upon.”_

_What Robert didn’t understand was that Jaime had looked, and had recognized the little face. He had taken in her green eyes, that perfect nose that could only have come from a union between himself and Cersei._

***

“What did you say?” Jaime asked in the cold and the dark, staring at Littlefinger. He barely noticed as Sansa placed her small form between himself and Petyr in a bizarre reversal of roles. As if she was now the one shielding him from harm.

“They sent your…niece’s…head to the Queen. In retaliation for Prince Oberyn’s death you see,” 

***

_“Uncle Jaime!” Myrcella yelled as she ran to him like a stout little ball of energy, all golden hair and bright, blinding smiles. “Uncle Jaime, look what I found!”_

_She held out a pebble to him. It was an ordinary piece of rock to most sensible adults, but it was a treasure in her eyes. He knelt beside her and said with utmost gravity, “My lady, you must keep that safe. I myself will guard it with my life.”_

_“Thank you,” her green eyes shone in excitement._

***

“Your brother had chosen to be absolved in a trial by combat and the Prince of Dorne volunteered to be his champion. Arrogant man, that Oberyn, even knowing whom he would battle.” Baelish was all but gloating now. “Gregor made quick work of dispensing justice. The Dornish did not themselves, see the fairness, although I assure you…”

“Leave, or I will make you leave,” Brienne said through gritted teeth, her sword drawn and pointed at Littlefinger’s throat. 

Physically bested, Littlefinger's hands rose slowly in submission, palms open. 

"It was well met Lady Brienne." Petyr said, eyes glittering like a snake's. "Lady Sansa, Ser Jaime, I am glad that I have found the both of you, and both in good health...I hope our next meeting will be less...volatile."

Never turning his back to the trio, he left the crumbling structure, and soon, he was out of sight.

“My lord…” Brienne sheathed her weapon and turned to her friend. “That man is a liar. Likely, he said what he said to rattle you…”

“He would not lie about something like this.” Jaime heard himself saying. “We must return to the castle. There are dangerous men about.”  
Without waiting for either of them, he started the long walk back.


	10. Faithless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime gets a clue. Then he gets another. Clues everywhere.
> 
> Sansa also gets a clue.
> 
> This story is kind of turning into - what if Sansa had a decent advisor at her side before the Battle of the Bastards.
> 
> Also, I can't write summaries.

He did not miss the way Sansa practically ran to keep up with his long strides, nor did he miss the frown branded into Brienne’s features, but the notion of slowing down or stopping did not occur to him. At the doors of Castle Black, guards who had been certain their wards were safely behind thick walls allowed them back inside with some confusion.

_Their Lord Commander should look to that._

“My Lord, do you need…” Brienne sounded lost. “Can I…”

“Good night My Lady.” his voice sounded as if it came from a great distance. “I will see Lady Sansa to her chambers…we have much to discuss.”

The wench nodded hesitantly. Jaime gestured so that Sansa walked ahead of him towards her own rooms. He waited as she fumbled at the entrance before following her in, allowing the heavy wooden door to shut behind them.

“You have to tell Jon of your visitor and his counsel,” Jaime said without preamble.

“Why?” she questioned. It somehow came as no surprise to him that she would seek to conceal her doings. The woman before him was overly fond of her secrets, he was finding to his distaste, although she could hardly be blamed for it. When he thought on it, he could see how keeping her lips sealed had been a trait of survival…but it did not mean he had to favour that penchant.

“Why _would_ you keep it from your brother?” he asked patiently and reasonably. “Why would you not tell him that the man who saved you from the Queen’s grasp lingers just beyond the front gates…and has now pledged you men to take back your family’s ancestral home? Is this not what you needed?”

“He saved me, to sell me to worse.” she argued. “His gifts are poison.”

“Hear me,” Jaime took a step closer to her. “They are poison, and without a doubt, he is an odious prick, but they are still gifts…gifts you can learn use to your advantage. Surely Petyr himself must have taught you that. The man loves passing along his cliches as if they were words of deep wisdom.” 

Sansa looked contemplatively up at him. 

“The truth is,” he continued sharply. “I did not hear you tell him ‘No’.” 

“I didn’t did I.” a cold smile curved on her lips; he wasn’t sure that he liked seeing it. For some reason, it brought to mind the serpentine smiles of his sister, his father.

“Don’t hide this from your brother,” Jaime warned tiredly. “It is far too important.”

Turning to let himself out, unexpectedly, he found Sansa’s fingers wrapped tightly around his bare wrist, keeping him rooted where he stood.

“Jaime…I’m sorry.” she said gently, regret in her eyes. “Myrcella was a good, kind girl. She did not deserve any of it.”  
“You don’t mean that,” he refused to meet her gaze, refused to acknowledge the darkness that threatened to swallow him whole.

“I do. I mean every word.” the woman moved herself between his body and his way out of the room. Her hands fluttered up and cupped his face, tilting gently so he looked her in the eye. “Jaime, I’m so very sorry…” 

In the candlelight, he could see every detail of her youthful face. His gaze lingered on her full, pink lips as his good hand crept onto her hip. Very slowly, he found himself closing what distance was left between them.

 _She was too young and too broken right now. And there was Cersei to think of - he was Cersei’s._

_Wasn’t he?_

But…his world was falling apart. His son was dead, his father was dead, and most undeservingly, his daughter was gone now, lost forever. He would never see her sweet smile again, not in this lifetime. 

That final reminder crumbled his last semblance of resistance. His left arm wrapped itself tightly around her ribs, bringing her flush against him.

“Sansa…” he whispered raggedly, before his mouth crashed against hers. When her soft lips touched his, it reminded him of Wildfire, heat and light bursting as one. Clutching at his tunic like a lifeline, Sansa opened to him sweetly, darting her small tongue out to meet his. He kissed her like a man dying of thirst, tasting water after stumbling in a desert for forty years, like a drowning man reaching for land. 

At first, he did not even notice her shoulders stiffening, or when she stopped returning his ardour. But then very gradually, her shaking became unmissable as his good hand dipped lower on the small of her back. When her breath hitched in her throat, and he heard what sounded like a muffled sob, he suddenly realized was was happening. 

She may never have uttered the words, but it was clear she desired for him to cease his ministrations.

Jaime stepped back in horror as the gravity of what he had just done sunk in. His arms dropped to his side as if he were scalded. Sansa looked at him, blinking away unshed tears.

“My Lady, I should not have…” he began wretchedly. “I did not mean to…”

“Please.” she said, trying to smile. “Please stop saying that. I’ve been wanting…I have been hoping…”

“I should leave,” he gestured awkwardly at the door which she still stubbornly blocked. 

“Listen to me.” she said wearily, her gaze dropping and her fingers suddenly twisting nervously before her. “You have been much on my mind. I had hoped…I had wanted you to…the point is…perhaps the time is not right, but if you could be find it in yourself to be patient…”

Jaime tried making himself remember that he was a grown man who needed to be strong. This was not the time for him to fall down, for if he fell now, he would never get up again. 

She hung her head. A large part of him longed to reach out and capture her lips once more, to allow them both a chance to lose themselves if only for a moment…but his need to protect her overrode his baser inclinations. 

“I wish I had gone with you. Every day, I wish I had gone with you when you had asked me the first time.” she whispered. “I fear now that I am ruined beyond recourse.”

Carefully, Jaime pulled her back into his arms, allowing her to bury her face in his chest. Resting his chin on the crown of her head, he allowed his green eyes to shut, forcefully holding back his own tears. 

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry about Myrcella…” she whispered. The knight could not trust himself to speak. 

***

His golden hand blocked another strike with a resounding noise as the wench’s sword bore down towards his head. Seeing an opening, Jaime lunged forward, narrowing missing her armoured torso when she leapt backwards.

Podrick watched carefully to the side, as the two warriors danced intricately in the training pit, gripping a bated sword eagerly. 

“Don’t think for a second that what you do with your feet doesn’t matter,” Brienne called over her shoulder to the squire. “And don’t be afraid to improvise.” 

Jaime stepped back, allowing the boy to take his place. The morning had been spent alternating between sparring, and observing the lessons between Brienne and Pod. The woman had insisted upon the rotation, likely because given the chance, he would keep fighting until he could no longer lift his sword arm. 

Watching Pod clumsily parry an attack, he wondered why in all seven hells, his father and Cersei had allowed the Prince of Dorne to face The Mountain. Did they truly think for a moment that the delicate, slender Prince could have stood against Gregor Clegane in single combat? Not enough time had passed for the Dornish to forget or forgive those who had been responsible for the rape and murder of Elia Martell and her infants. Not enough time ever would.

But it would seem his family despised Tyrion so much, they were willing to risk the delicate alliance forged with Sunspear…where Myrcella had been all but held as a royal hostage to placate the burning hatred of the Martells. 

Although who put her there, if not Tyrion himself, who had only done it as a means to spit in Cersei’s face.

His only daughter was dead because of his siblings’ blinding spite and Tywin’s surprising negligence. The thought of his sister tearing at her hair as she wept, felt keenly and sadistically satisfying. 

Perhaps the old man’s head had been addled by age - in which case, he was better off dead than useless, Jaime considered harshly. 

Gaze drifting upwards to where the Commander’s quarters were, he studied the closed doors, behind of which the Stark siblings were conversing, together with Ser Davos and Edd Tollett.

Sansa. There was the other complication. Jaime could not deny, now, that he wanted her. It seemed wrong that he should want a woman only a few namedays older that Myrcella. It seemed obscene that the memory of her kiss should feel like a measure of what felt like happiness in an indifferent world, at a moment when he should have been grieving.

Yet he could not stop repeating the scene in his mind. Could not stop recalling how her lips had parted under his, or how, for a moment, she had allowed him to mould her body against his.

_You have been much on my mind._

In King’s Landing, he had barely spoken to her, his timid good-sister who said little and walked with her eyes cast towards the ground. True, he had found her face pleasant, and thought her figure finely formed. Without a doubt, he had spent many a sleepless night tossing guiltily in his bed, contemplating his failure to protect her as Catelyn Stark had wanted.

In the past weeks however, as they fled through the wilderness, she had awoken in him an awareness of the sort he once thought reserved only for Cersei. 

Ever since he had slain Mad Aerys, Jaime had wandered numbly through the ensuing years. Fighting, fucking…everything felt as if it were happening to somebody else, or as if he were undertaking each deed through a heavy fog. Making love to Cersei made him feel alive momentarily, but the moments always faded, leaving him in a place where all life, all breath, all colour had been leeched away. When he was with Sansa however, or when he thought of her, it was as if the fog were being burned away, casting the shape of the world into sharp relief. 

When he stood beside Sansa, the world made sense again. His path was clear, his vision was unclouded. Justice and honour meant something when he raised his blade for her sake, and how long had it been, since last he felt this way? The Mad King had ripped away what dreams he once had in a blink of an eye, but the woman was returning him something that seemed more solid than mere fantasies, more tangible than empty songs.

“Jaime, are you even listening?” Brienne asked, sword pointed downwards, looking as if she wanted to comfort him, but didn’t know how. Which he knew was exactly the case.

Raising his sword, he started advancing on her when the utterance of his name distracted him.

“The Lord Commander wants a word with you,” Edd called unceremoniously from across the yard, and walked away without so much as a second glance.

Pale eyebrows shooting upwards, Brienne watched him disappear towards the Commander’s rooms.

***

Jon stood alone before his large and ornate desk, studying a map of the North as Jaime entered. 

“Shut the door,” Jon said, looking up.

“Sansa told me of her late night visitor,” he said, looking frustrated the moment they were isolated from the rest of the castle. “She told me of Baelish’s offer.”

“I am glad she chose to speak with you on it.” Jaime replied.  
In his mind, he wondered how much else Sansa told Jon…and if he ought to be looking to protect himself from sharp objects pointed his way.

“Do you trust the man?” Jon asked, peering closely at him.

“No.” the knight said flatly. “But - he is a tool to be used, if you can wield him properly.”

“As long as that tool doesn’t turn on you…which he has already done in the past, from what I gather.” 

“If it were up to me, his corpse would have been left in that frozen field for carrion. But your sister stayed my hand.” Jaime answered. “My Lord, why did you summon me?”

Jon sighed. “I am sorry for your loss. Sansa…she told me.”

Swallowing, somehow Jaime found the words. “Yes…right. I…thank you for your words.”

“I also called you up here, to ask if you will be joining us when we leave in seven days,” Jon walked around his desk, picking up stacks of documents and fussing with the order of papers. “We ride to gather men.”

“I swore I would protect Sansa.” Jaime said, tilting his head. “I don’t see how I could do so, if I did not stay by her side.”

“What I’m doing, is giving you a chance to walk away.” Jon said. “This is not your fight. Not unless you want it to be. If it comforts you, Sansa will not be wanting for protectors.”

Strange days, that he should be given a choice to fight for the North beside a Northern bastard, for the victory of the Stark banner. The idea of returning to King’s Landing now, to face Cersei’s tears and anger repulsed him to the point of disgust.

Not to mention - the idea of walking away from Sansa never seemed less desirable. The moment he had left her quarters the night before, he knew that leaving was not a path he was willing to take. Far from it.

It wasn’t only their kiss that had persuaded him, though it had certainly sealed his path. At present, the Stark children were, as he observed previously, surrounded by criminals, mutineers and worse. With their plans to ride forth into a dangerous fight, Jaime could only guess at what perils lay in wait for the siblings. On top of everything, with Baelish at their door slavering after Sansa and luring her with dubious promises, the knight could not trust that the woman was truly in safe hands. In their most dire moment, Jaime wondered if Jon or even Brienne would be ruthless enough to do what was necessary, to ensure the Stark daughter’s survival. 

Fundamentally, the part of him that was still the Kingslayer knew very well the lengths he would go to, to guard what he valued, no matter the price to be paid.

“I have been labelled Oathbreaker in my life.” Jaime said instead. “I will no longer wear that mantle. You have my sword, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking.” Jon cracked a rusty smile that disappeared quickly. “One more thing. Is there something between yourself and my sister that I should be worried about?”

“If you are implying…” the former Kingsguard started.

“I am not implying. I am - still - only asking.” Jon refused to back down. 

Choose his next words, Jaime said, “I would never do anything to bring dishonour to Sansa. You have my word.”

Seemingly satisfied, Jon turned his attention away, wordlessly dismissing Jaime.

***

He should have known she would be waiting in his tiny chambers, ready to ambush him as he entered. Indeed, he found her pacing the short length of the room, her anxiety a tangible thing. 

“My lady, you seemed to be lost - these are not your appointed rooms.” Jaime carefully moved past her. Their bare hands brushed momentarily, causing her breath to hitch and her face to flush. 

Good, his traitorous thoughts whispered. Resisting the urge to tug her close, he stared at her with his arms crossed.

“Jon has agreed to my suit.” She said breathlessly. 

“I know.” Jaime nodded. 

“He doesn’t think…” she hesitated. “He doesn’t want to accept Baelish’s offer – which I do understand. What I _don’t_ understand, is that he doesn’t believe it would be any use to call upon Brynden Tully for his assistance.”

“He’s right not to,” the knight leaned against the wall. He could tell from the flush extending down her slender throat that his regard affected her. What would it be like to skim his fingers under her collar, he wondered…

“I don’t understand. My uncle would come, I know it.” Sansa shook her head and resumed her pacing.

“The Tullys were all but decimated when…” Jaime hesitated. “They were decimated. For Brynden Tully to take his ancestral seat back from the Freys would have cost him no small amount of effort, and without a doubt, the lives of loyal men. He risked everything he had left for the sake of winning that which was so dear to him.”

The woman regarded him thoughtfully. 

“You cannot expect a man to let go of something when he’s given up so much, fought so hard for it,” Jaime stood up straight, drawn towards Sansa’s unwavering gaze. 

“Do you truly believe that?” she asked softly. 

“Yes,” he found himself telling her as she leaned in just a little closer. “A man would even rope himself into a battle that isn’t his to fight, for the sake of holding on to it.”

“Thank you Ser, for helping me understand…” her right hand crept up, fingers brushing his cheek gently. 

Reluctantly, they pulled away from each other. Sansa caught sight of his right arm and reached down, running her fingers lightly over the molded limb. 

“I saw no reason to hide who I am any longer,” he said, unable to peel his gaze from her stroking hands. Already, he found he was growing half hard under his breeches. “Truth be told, it’s far better in a fight.”

A strange gleam entered her eyes at that. For some reason, it made him remember the first time he’d ever met her, when she was but a girl in the courtyard of Winterfell. That memory made his heart twinge further, but he pushed it aside, letting himself be caught by surprise when she leaned in and landed a light kiss on his cheek, before swiftly showing herself out.

***

The ensuing days at Castle Black moved at a syrupy slow pace. There were no real diversions, outside of practicing his swordplay, and contributing to the instruction of Podrick. They woke, they sparred, they ate, they slept…

Every so often, a large man wrapped in furs would settle himself by the training pit, watching the wench with unmasked admiration. 

The knight was not sure what to make of the Wildling. He had no illusions that the man was a brute, probably capable of ripping another person apart with his bare hands. But the besotted expression he wore as he stared the Maid of Tarth, and the fact that he seemed utterly tongue tied around her, made him seem almost…timid.

“Is he staring again?” she hissed one afternoon, her back turned to the Wildling.

“Yes My Lady,” Jaime smiled. “Your ardent admirer is indeed, staring again. Perhaps today will be the day he makes a verbal overture.”

That thought seemed to distress her to no end. It almost made him laugh. 

“I heard him say something about giant babies to Edd,” Podrick offered with a giggle.

Now Jaime did in fact, snort. The wench’s features relaxed as she observed his merriment at her expense; she had not made it a secret that she had been watching him with utmost concern ever since the night they met Littlefinger.

“I’m sure there’s a Wildling maiden who will only be too happy to help him in that endeavor.” Brienne raised her sword. “If she doesn’t run screaming first.”

Jaime met her parry, swinging his training sword with impunity. He had his own observer, he knew, from one of the platforms above. In the warmer afternoons, Sansa would emerge from her chambers, observing his training in the yard. Sometimes, he would turn and salute her, bringing a faint smile to her lips. 

Unlike their time fleeing Northwards, there was little excuse for the two of them to be alone, but still, in the late night, when the rest of the castle had already settled in, they found excuses to steal time. Strolling along the edges of the castle and keeping to the shadows, they told each other stories, both imagined and real, keeping the ghosts of loved ones at bay. They speculated on the wench’s new admirer, and how soon Brienne would respond to the Wilding’s clumsy advances with a well-placed stab.

“I had my own brute once, who stole a kiss from me,” Sansa said distantly one night. 

“Is that right?” Jaime asked curiously.

“I found Sandor in my bed during the Battle of the Blackwater and he begged me for a song...he offered to take me away from King’s Landing. Fool that I was, I turned him away.” She shook her head as if it clear it. “Not of course, before stealing a kiss. I kept his bloody cloak in my chest for a while...”

Jaime could not escape the unexpected pang of intense jealousy that throbbed over him. He misliked the tender note that crept into her voice as she spoke of Clegane, or the fact that she had retained anything that belonged to him. That the massive man had been in her bed was almost too much a thought to bear.

“I heard he ran like a craven during the battle.” Jaime said churlishly, voice rough with possessiveness.

“Perhaps,” she said. “I admit, I was distressed to hear he had my sister with him, though he had been bested by our Lady Brienne.”

“She certainly is an exceptional woman,” he mused, observing as Sansa bristled ever so slightly at the innocuous compliment he paid to the wench. He knew that sharp look in her eyes – Cersei wore it often whenever another female paid him any mind. Regardless, if the wench hadn’t killed the Hound, there was a very real chance Jaime might - accidentally - run him through should they ever cross paths again. 

As she bid him goodnight, Sansa leaned over and kissed the corner of his mouth, lingering just long enough to make him reach up with his good hand in an unintended bid to deepen their embrace. His left hand briefly touched her silky hair as she hurried away, leaving him tingling where her lips had caressed his skin.

***

The night before they left, in response to the Lord Commander’s summons, the former Kingsguard found himself being lifted to the top of the Wall in the rickety cage that traversed up and down the steep and frozen sides. For a moment, he had wondered if Jon had become aware of the private moments he had been sharing with Sansa, but decided that if the man wanted him dead, he would probably have set his blasted direwolf on him back on the ground.

Stepping off the platform however, Jaime felt a moment of dizzying vertigo, and a sharp spike of panic as Jon strode towards him, one gloved hand clasped on the pommel of his sheathed sword. Ghost padded beside him, red eyes reflecting the glow of the few torches present.

“I thought perhaps you’d like to try pissing off the edge like your brother before you,” Jon raised his voice over the shrieking wind. His smile was friendly. 

“I’m not sure how he didn’t piss his breeches before he even reached the edge,” Jaime said, approaching him carefully. It was a broad walkway, but intimidating nevertheless. “Come to it, I’m not sure if I haven’t pissed _my_ own breeches – its bloody high up here.”

Jon gave a shout of laughter, and guided him to a lookout point that extended over the edge of the monolith.

“Somewhere beyond those mountains, the true enemy is moving. I fear this storm is the work of the Night King’s sorcery.” Sansa’s brother said with utmost solemnity. Jamie observed the swirling snow that was rapidly picking up into a full blown blizzard at an unnatural pace over the forest thousands of feet below. Perhaps it was his imagination, but on the distant horizon, he thought he glimpsed what appeared to be unearthly sparks of lightning. 

Something howled below them, lonely and mournful. Ghost lifted his muzzle and answered. It was a haunting sound, like nothing Jaime had ever heard before.

“Lannister…it may be that you will come in useful. When the battle for Winterfell is over, and Gods willing, we are victorious, I will need the support of the Southern lords on our side,” Jon stated in the silence that ensued.

“And you think I am the best man for the job?” Jaime blurted out. “I’m afraid it’s Tyrion you need. He’s always been the diplomat.”

“Lord Tyrion is not here.” Jon’s dark eyes regarded him. There was a silent plea in them.

“One battle at a time Ser,” Jaime said at last. 

“You don’t believe me.” Jon laughed bitterly. “That’s understandable. Sometimes I don’t believe me.”

“It’s not a question of whether or not I believe you.” Jaime sighed. “At this moment, I have two duties. Protect Sansa - and Arya if she is ever found - and survive the coming battles. I have paid no mind to anything further.”

“There is wisdom in there, I suppose.” Jon nodded. “Get your rest tonight. Tomorrow, we begin our ride South.”

Sparing one last look at the barren wasteland on the other side of the Wall, Jaime unaccountably shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.

***

His horse was groomed and ready. Freshly shaven and clad in his polished armour, Jaime took in the familiar sight of soldiers readying themselves to ride out into danger. Ironically, what wasn’t familiar, he thought with unease, was the sight of Brienne and Sansa seeing to their own mounts. He knew the wench was capable with a sword, but he had never seen her in true battle. Gladly, he would fight back-to-back with her, but there was always the chance that they would be separated. Unbidden, the image of her lifeless face frozen in a rictus of agony presented itself to him, tormenting him briefly. 

It went without saying that Sansa, clever woman though she had become, had no skills whatsoever in protecting her physical self. Jaime could not begin to bring himself to think of her fate, should they fail. 

The object of his regard was speaking with Jon, passing him something that made her brother’s eyes shine in gratitude and affection. As they embraced, the sight as always, made him irrationally uncomfortable, causing him to turn away.

A few minutes later, he could feel her familiar presence patiently waiting behind him. Turning to her, he was surprised to see Sansa holding out a neatly folded square. The colours were as familiar to him as the sight of the front door of Casterly Rock.

“I thought you may have need of something to keep you warm in the days ahead,” she smiled artlessly as he took the scarlet cloth out of her hands. Letting it fall open as he lay the warm material over his golden hand, he saw, picked out carefully in gold and silver thread, the sigils of both their houses facing away from each other. Lion and the Wolf were back-to-back, snarling and clawing at their enemies.

“Take better care of this one - it is not for cleaning your blades.” her smile became a smirk as she walked away. He looked after her in astonishment, which gave way to an urge to run after her, and claim her before Gods and men alike. 

From a few feet away, Jon glared at him in deep irritation. Giving her brother a sharp nod and a cocky grin, Jaime deliberately secured the cloak about his shoulders and mounted his horse.


	11. Turncoat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime and Sansa make out, like everywhere. There are bases breached.
> 
> Jaime and Sansa work on their relationship issues.
> 
> Jaime goes full Lannister on Ramsay.
> 
> Jon Snow flounders with words.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coming up to the end now. Side Note: S7 finale last night was amazeballs.

Burley and Knott were the first Mountain Clans they reached, and the first two houses to refuse.

Jaime watched as Davos and the Stark siblings rode out of each gate with faces pinched in frustration. So far, they were leaving each seat with the men who had followed from Castle Black, and the Freefolk who had agreed to fight for the Stark cause, no more and no less. Their call to all Northern houses that had not openly declared for the Boltons remained unanswered.

“If only we could find the right words,” Sansa mused, riding beside Jaime. Brienne flanked her from the other side. 

“What was their excuse this time?” the knight asked. 

“Robb.” her face flushed angrily. “In their minds, Robb failed in his duty as their King when he did not honour his vows to Walder Frey, and took a foreigner to wife. They still blame us for the deaths of their men.”

“The North remembers.” Jaime reminded her drily. 

Casting him a dark look, Sansa rode ahead to join her brother.

“You certainly have a way with words,” Brienne remarked. “And here I imagined you capable of courting a lady.”

“I am not courting Sansa,” Jaime growled even as her eyes drifted to his carefully crafted cloak. “I’m not _courting_ her when, for all intents, she is still married.”

“So clandestine affair is it?” her lips twitched. He cast her a murderous look, but said nothing. 

“Her Lord Husband.” Brienne’s face screwed in disgust. “I look forward to meeting him in the field of battle. It will surely be satisfying to cut him down.”

“Have you…” the former Kingsguard paused. “Brienne, a battle is…”

The wench’s large eyes were narrowed to an alarming degree. “If the next words you think to utter are ‘a battle is no place for a high born lady’…”

“It isn’t though is it?” Jaime asked with brutal honesty. “You are no ordinary lady. You fight better than most knights I’ve known. But a true battle is not like a skirmish between two foes. You will have enemies coming from all sides, at all times. When the bloodlust takes you, believe it or not, telling friend from foe becomes harder than you can imagine.”

Snorting contemptuously, Brienne dug her heels into her mount and left Jaime behind.

“Was it something I said?” he asked nobody in particular.

***

It was at Norrey, days later, when the tide finally started to turn in favour of the Stark cause. At sundown, as the cookfires were kindled, and as Jaime and Podrick sparred, the Stark delegation finally returned from their negotiations. Lowering his weapon, Jamie crossed the distance to greet them, noting that all three looked a little less weary than they had in past days. A small group of unfamiliar men bearing the standard of six thistles had followed the Stark siblings. The strangers fussed about, making camp next to the river that flowed sluggishly by all the soldiers.

“My Lady, how goes it?” Jaime asked curiously.

“Quite well.” She said with a small smile, pulling her gloves off.

“What convinced them?” he asked.

“Funny you should ask. It was _you_ who changed their minds.” Jon was caught between annoyance and something bordering on amusement. Jaime observed each of them in consternation.

“Lady Sansa implied that the Northerners should be well ashamed of their hesitance to fight for the North, when the eldest son of Tywin Lannister himself has already pledged his sword willingly.” Davos announced, almost with pride. 

_Cersei was going to be furious when she received word of this, if she hadn’t already_ , Jaime thought, even as he admired Sansa’s strategy – at his expense though it seemed to be.

“The Norreys will spare us two hundred of their men, but that is it. They will follow when we ride on the morrow.” Jon said, focusing on the matter at hand as he strode towards his own tent. “We need much more before we can even reach half the strength of the Bolton army.”

Sansa watched him leave with Ser Davos by his side. 

“I have half a mind to send a message to Littlefinger,” she said, not looking at Jaime.

“Do you?” he was not quite surprised. His presence had not been requested in the war council, but he was getting more than an inkling of troubles nobody wanted to discuss aloud.

“I raised Baelish’s offer to Jon again, but he won’t hear of it. What use is having an army at my disposal, if I can’t use it?” Sansa’s voice was tinged in anger. “Jon won’t listen to me because to him, I’m just the same silly girl that fussed over ribbons. Tormund won’t listen because he thinks I’m a soft Southern lady. And Ser Davos won’t listen because Jon won’t listen.”

“You have to make them listen.” Jaime lowered his voice. “Sansa, out of every name you just uttered, none of them bear the name ‘Stark’…but _you_ do. Never forget that.”

“Do I though?” she asked, still sounding faintly irate. “I’ve been married. Twice. The fact is, I’m still the wife of that monster who sits in my Father’s chair.”

“What of it?” Jaime reached out and pressed his hand against her soft cheek, heedless of the looks they were receiving from the newcomers. They could all hang, as far as he was concerned. “My Lady, you will always be a Stark.”

When she reached her hand to his, Jaime assumed it was because he had overstepped, and braced himself to let her push him away. Cersei had always been so careful when they were in the presence of others.

But Sansa curled her fingers around his own affectionately as her eyes softened. In the light of the setting sun, her hair was the colour of burnished copper, and Jaime wondered if there were ever a prettier picture. She murmured so only he could hear, “My heroic knight with his gallant words.”

Jaime could not stop himself from stiffening, and pulling away nonetheless. He could see her shifting to confusion and worry at his unexpected withdrawal. Ser Davos cleared his throat from behind the two, warning them of his approach.

“Ser Jaime, Lady Sansa, Jon has requested your presence.”

Surprised, Jaime followed the Onion Knight to Jon’s tent, where he and Tormund were poring over maps of the North, speaking in hushed tones.

“My Lord?” the knight looked askance. 

“Lannister,” Jon started uncomfortably, standing at attention. “Given that we used your name to leverage our negotiations, we thought it might be wise to include you, at least as a way to show we aren’t just uttering empty blandishments…and given your skill in warfare, it would be foolish not to confer our plans with you…what I’m trying to say is, we would appreciate it if you could…I mean to say…”

_Was it cruel to let a man ramble on incoherently, when it was so very entertaining to watch him flounder?_

“Yes, fine.” Jaime grunted, hiding his increasing surprise at the pragmatism the Northerners were displaying. “I had assumed you would indeed, all be needing my help. The Northern equivalent of a cunning plan always seems to involve yelling “Here I come” right before leaping into what they call a surprise attack.”

“Now see here…” Jon lost his even tones as his dark eyes burned in indignation. It was almost too easy to rile him up. 

“That’s enough,” Sansa snapped, removing her cloak and refusing to meet Jaime’s eyes; he could see that he had hurt her. “I believe we have more pressing priorities to discuss.”

“Aye lady,” Tormund laughed, turning to Jon. “Your sister surely is the true ruler in this tent.” 

“Perhaps we should understand how many men we can realistically hope to gather…” Jaime started, putting aside his bated sword and actively ignoring Jon’s glare as he walked towards the materials spread out before them.

***

Whatever it was that Sansa had said to the Northern Lords - that is, the ones who agreed to march for the Stark banner - eased Jaime’s continued presence in the war council. While he could plainly see that they did not like him, they bore his presence with grudging acceptance.

Of course, he rather doubted he would be sharing mead with any of them in the foreseeable future, but he had expected far worse. 

Regardless, as the days grew shorter and their army grew larger, the former Lord Commanders found themselves sharing looks of concern over the heads of the other men. Sansa caught those looks, and in turn, grew more frustrated by the day.  
Even with the men they had gathered, and even assuming the last holdouts agreed to march with them, they had not the full strength that the Boltons had built with the Karstarks and the Umbers, notwithstanding any number of houses the Starks themselves had not elicited men from.

“Perhaps if you spoke with Jon, he’d listen to you,” she said one night as they strolled away from the camp and into the nearby forest. They had only just left Bear Island, where they had been pledged the services of a laughably paltry sum of men. The snows had thawed for the moment, leaving the trees bare and the ground damp. 

“I’m afraid it would not be well received by the rest of the council.” Jaime shook his head. “Many of them do not trust me and for good reason. My family helped put the Boltons in power…I’m afraid even your assurances that I am here to atone for those sins do not sway them in my favour, even if they continue to keep their peace.”

“Ah yes. These men who swore their fealty to House Stark, and did nothing to fight for us when the Boltons rode in.” Sansa sighed, rubbing at her forehead. “Sometimes when I think of my father’s high opinions of these men, I wonder at his judgement.”

They stopped behind a great tree, the trunk of which spanned several feet, obscuring them from any prying eyes that might be looking.

“Your father was an honourable man. I always thought it was honour that made him see things in simple terms: you were either honourable, or you were not.” Jaime looked up at the stars, knowing exactly which side of the divide Ned Stark had considered him. “These were his vassals who never had cause to let him down in life - so I suppose, he imagined them honourable. To have done otherwise…would have been against his nature.”

Sansa wiped at her cheeks. Jaime reached out with his golden hand and tilted her chin upwards. In the moonlight, her tears glittered on her fair skin. 

“Ser…” she breathed. In answer, he leaned down and brushed his lips against hers. His other arm wrapped around her waist and with his body, he pushed her against the tree, pressing her back into its rough bark. Her arms wound around his neck as they deepened their kiss. 

A small voice reminded Jaime of why he should not push things further, for fear of reminding her of nightmares best left buried…and truly, he meant to listen. As he made to pull away however, she whispered, “Don’t…please…Jaime, I…I don’t want to stop. Not now, not tonight…”

It was enough for him to return to the pleasurable task at hand. 

Even as she returned his kisses with fervency, he could tell that a part of her wanted him to stop. She repeated his name in a soft litany, over and over, as if bracing herself against pain that she was sure would follow.

 _The woman has never had any man treat her gently in matters such as these_ , he reminded himself as he trailed the length of her swan-like neck with his lips. She had no idea, no inkling of how it could be, or should be.

Jaime’s good hand reached up and gently undid the front clasps of her dress, before slipping his fingers under the layers she wore. Carefully, he stroked the soft skin he found underneath as his mouth laved over her clavicle. Above him, Sansa gasped softly, though not in terror or fear…

It sent a rush of blood straight to his cock. 

Nonetheless, even as his thumb and forefinger found a hard nipple welcoming his touch, even as her gasps turned to soft moans, he knew that he would not take her. Not that night, not against a tree in the cold forest as if she were a common camp follower. 

No one had ever treated Sansa gently in such matters. 

Reluctantly, he moved to kiss her on her lips, and withdrew his fingers from the folds of her dress. 

“Don’t you want…I mean…” she asked shyly, looking at him from under heavy-lidded eyes. Gods, but he wanted to throw her down on the hard ground; he wanted to bury himself in her warm body and to claim her as his own.

“More than anything in this world, I want you.” he breathed, pressing his forehead against hers. He guided her small hand to his breeches and watched as her eyes grew round when her fingers connected with the bulge she found. Fighting back a groan, he whispered fiercely, “When I take you, I will take you in a bed, in your chambers, in Winterfell. Do you understand?”

Clasping his face to hers, her kiss matched his in passion and ardour as her hips thrust forwards, seeking something she had no idea she had even wanted.

***

Walking back to camp, careful to stay a respectable distance from each other, Sansa suddenly stilled. Jaime looked at at her, and saw the beginnings of excitement building.

“What is it?" he asked. 

“It’s so simple. How did I not see this?” Sansa explained her thoughts rapidly, while Jaime listened with dawning hope. 

“We need to bring this to Jon,” he said. 

“He won’t listen, I told you…” her excitement died, suddenly looking for all the world like a little girl who had been thwarted. 

“My lady, the only way for this plan to truly work, is if we get the entire war council on our side.” Jaime sighed, and began to explain the rough strategy he had already started to form in his mind. Hesitantly, Sansa nodded, already walking in the direction of Jon’s tent as Jaime kept on speaking. 

“I need you to repeat all you have said in front of Jon and the other Lords,” she said firmly as they drew close. 

“Sansa, I already told you, they won’t like it coming from…”

"I don’t care if they won’t like it. If we are to have any hope, this is the only way.” Sansa said fiercely, although Jaime had a notion that she sounded more confident than she felt. Pushing their way into Jon’s tent, they found the Lord stripping himself of his armour, and readying himself for sleep. The man looked between the two of them in confusion, before his eyes narrowed.

“Sansa, you have leaves in your hair. And Lannister, I swear, are those…”

“We send a messenger directly to Yohn Royce.” Sansa interrupted. “We summon him, not Baelish.”

Jon stared at them both. “It will take too long for them to march up here. And I won’t have us in debt to that snake…”

“Lord Royce told me before I left the Vale that he’s loyal to our father. He is already at Moat Cailin. If we send our plea to him directly, we owe Petyr nothing. Petyr may be Lord Protector, but Lord Royce owes his fealty to Robin Arryn - the true Lord of the Vale, and indeed, our true kin.”

“Sister…”

“Agree with me or don’t. I am sending a rider out once I leave this tent.” Sansa’s said, her voice hard. 

Her brother looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. Responding in kind, he growled, “The man has our brother. We don’t have the time for this insane plan…”

“Rickon is as good as dead.” Sansa’s voice was raised in anger. 

The silence that ensued was deafening, broken only by the crackling of the flames in the brazier.

“Jon, we will never, never get Rickon back. I love him, I do, but you don’t know Ramsay. He _will_ kill him if he hasn’t already, and he will dangle our brother’s mangled corpse in front of us if he thought it would bring him victory.” 

The effort and the pain of speaking those words would have been evident to any witness. Uncaring of what her brother might have thought, Jaime moved behind Sansa and placed a protective hand on her. 

“I don’t know what to say…” Jon stared into the flames. “I can’t stop thinking of his little face, or how he looked the last time I saw him. I don’t think he ever forgave me for leaving.” 

“I miss him so much. I miss all of them so much. Rickon used to…he used to cling to me, declaring he would marry me when I was of age. How many times have I combed mud out of his curls before Mother would see? Gods Jon…do you even know…” Sansa fought for composure. “Please, if only just this once, please listen to me.”

Jon stood and crossed the room, pulling his sister into a rough embrace. Together, the siblings held each other, lost in grief for everything and everyone they had lost. Quietly, Jaime exited the tent without a word, trying to will away the memory of Myrcella’s laughter. 

***

“My Lords,” Sansa started in front of the assembled council. She nodded at Lyanna Mormont. “My Lady. We have been granted a boon.”

The assembled group looked up at her questioningly, skeptically; Jon and Jaime stood flanking her slender form, like the stalwart guards of a monarch

“I received a messenger late in the night, who led us to understand that Yohn Royce and the Knights of the Eyrie have pledged their men to our cause,” Sansa said. “They wait for orders just beyond Moat Cailin.”

Jaime had to admit - the calm manner in which Sansa told the minor falsehood would have made Tywin Lannister himself proud. At her other shoulder, Jon flinched and looked away briefly.

“I plan to accept his offer.” Sansa concluded. The room exploded in a flurry of protests.

“They are not of the North.” the Liege Lord of Tallhart stated. “We should not rely on the strength of outsiders! Is it not enough that we fight beside the Kingslayer?”

“It would take far too long to have them move their men up here, not to mention, they would never pass Winterfell unchallenged.” Chief Wull scoffed. 

_Are all these dullards completely without imagination_ , Jaime wondered. 

“They will not come up to meet us. Quite the opposite. We will meet them…with the Boltons between us in the field.” Jaime spoke, ignoring the suspicious glares aimed towards him. “My Lords, Lady Mormont, consider the lives of the men who follow you. If you could even spare one man, if even one family could have their husband, father or son return home, would you not take the chance?”

“It is past time we set aside our old prejudices for the sake of the greater good.” Sansa continued. “If we do not do so, we will find ourselves under the yoke of a monster who would think _nothing_ of murdering your children. If you will not consider what he did to Ned Stark’s own daughter, might I remind you of Ramsay Bolton’s crimes against House Cerwyn?”

Every individual in the room knew of the grisly fate that had befallen Lord Medger, his wife and his brother, and at whose hand. After a few moments, it was Lyanna Mormont who stood first. 

***

“You are sending me away?” Brienne asked in disbelief, her brilliant sapphire eyes widening in shock and anger.

“I’m not sending you _away_.” Jaime sighed, already feeling the headache building. “I’m sending you to _summon_ Lord Royce and the Knights of the Eyrie.”

“What I’m hearing is that you are keeping me away from the battle in some misbegotten attempt to protect me.” the wench blurted bluntly. One hand was unconsciously placed on the hilt of her sword, as if readying herself for a fight while the other clutched at the rolled parchment she had been given.

_Gods, had he ever sounded that naive?_

“Put aside your pride and stop hearing what you so wilfully choose to.” Jaime straightened up, every inch a commander. He could not be her friend in that moment. “If we don’t get a message to the Lord of Runestone, than all is for naught. The truth is, we do not have the men to take Winterfell at this moment. When you return with the Knights, I am not expecting you to take your ease. I expect you to fight with them, for us…for Sansa Stark.”

The Maid of Tarth continued to look at him in deep suspicion.

“Brienne, you are the only one in this sorry lot whom I trust to ride as hard as you can, and make it safely past Moat Cailin.” Jaime lowered his voice. From the way her stance shifted, he knew he was finally reaching her. “You will not take Podrick - who can handle a sword about as well as he handles kindling - because this has to be conducted with haste and efficiency and the boy will only slow you down.”

“I will not fail you nor Sansa," the wench finally replied, accepting the truth of Jaime’s words.

“There is a little more. You must take your message to Lord Royce, and Lord Royce only. But when they come, Petyr Baelish must be amongst them.”

There must have been something in his eyes or his tone that caused her lips to curve with a dangerous smile. He had seldom seen malice in the Lady, but he found re-assurance in the realization that they shared the same sentiments on certain things.

Turning to leave, she looked back one last time. “Stay alive Lannister. I could not bear it if I returned to find you dead.”

“Aye.” he smiled wryly. “I would not bear it if I found myself dead either…fare you well, Maid of Tarth.”

***

Over the following days, the army began to move Eastwards. Slowly but surely, they moved towards battle, and with each day that passed, Jaime’s hope’s plummeted and rose like tides upon the beaches of his youth. Sometimes, he was certain the wench had survived the journey, and had found the Knights of the Eyrie. Other times, he was convinced she had been taken prisoner, and was suffering unspeakable torments in the cells of Winterfell.

Plans were revised and remedied each night when the council convened, but it remained that their best hopes hinged on Brienne’s quest. It was the afternoon before they were to meet the Boltons on the field, when Jaime found himself conversing privately with Jon and Ser Davos, trailing a map of the North with his golden hand. The route he pointed to, led onwards to White Harbour.

“Gods willing, it will not come to that,” Ser Davos said gruffly, looking perturbed. “But if it does, I will protect Lady Sansa with my life.”

“You will take a few of the Wildling men with you,” Jon said. “And you will buy passage to Braavos.”

Jaime handed the Onion Knight the small pouch of dragons he had left in his possession. “Use this wisely. Do not let her out of your sight - she will likely take it into her head to find revenge, should we fail today.”

The three men shared a grim silence. 

***

Jaime rode beside the Northern Lords and the Lady Sansa, to what he knew would be a mockery of a parley on the field. The sky was overcast and the heavens looked as if they would open at a moment’s notice, he noticed with foreboding. 

Ramsay Bolton approached from the other side of the field, at the head of his own delegation. Beady dark eyes studied each of them in turn, before settling his regard on Jon. 

“Well met Bastard. I was glad to hear of your rise in the ranks of the Night’s Watch, and saddened that this is how I would meet my sweet wife’s family. However…pardon me if I’m mistaken, but is not desertion of your post punishable by death?” Bolton oozed. Jaime’s hand never left Oathbreaker’s pommel as he studied the man before him. “However, rest assured, I will pardon you for your desertion of the Night’s Watch if you would return to me, my sweet wife.”

“I did not come today to ask your pardon.” Jon ground out, barely holding in his rage. “I came to ask for your surrender, of lands and holdings that are not yours by right. If you choose to, we may fight here, man to man, and save the needless bloodshed and suffering of battle.”

“I think not good Ser,” Ramsay replied. “I have heard of your great skill with the blade, and could never hope to best a swordsman of your skill.”

“So you will not fight for your men?” Jon asked scathingly, turning to address those who stood with the Boltons. Some donned the crests of white sunbursts, and others, of four chains; the single woman who rode with Ramsay’s party held a banner bearing the sigil of a black horse with a flaming mane. None of them would meet Jon’s gaze. “What would your followers think of a leader who would not fight for them?”

“They would think me clever. As for you, my faithless wife,” Ramsay’s gaze flitted between Sansa and Jaime. “I’m sure you will miss your Lannister lover when this is over. Worry not, I will gift you his head so you may stare at it every night and day as I fuck you. This I promise.”

The former Kingsguard continued to fix his gaze on the Bolton bastard. The squat man faltered at the sight of Jaime’s leonine smile, which made the older man resemble nothing so much as a great cat toying with his prey.

“ _Lord_ Bolton…I am glad you remember my name. You are here by the grace of my father before me. When you claimed Sansa Stark to wife - she who was my good-sister, if you recall - you broke faith with my House.” Jaime spoke evenly, leaning forward every so slightly. “How do you suppose House Lannister deals with their betrayers?” 

All traces of amusement had been replaced with seething resentment.

“You are not here riding at the head of the Lannister army.” Ramsay spat. “Your father is dead. You ser, are nothing but a deserter and a traitor to the crown.”

“That may all be true. but I’m sure my uncle Kevan - who has always been fond of me - would not be so quick to forgive slights upon our name.” Jaime was bluffing. Kevan would not likely send his army for the sake of his Kingslayer nephew. 

“Perhaps I won’t kill you. Perhaps I’ll just take another hand. Or a foot.” Ramsay sneered. “I _do_ remember how you got that shiny golden appendage you have there.”

“Enough. Where is Rickon?” Sansa asked harshly. “How do we know you have him?”

Ramsay reached into his saddle pack, and pulled out a small, furred object. Tossing it at the feet of the Stark delegation, he turned his horse around. “My hounds shall feast on the morrow. I’ve starved them for days, in anticipation of your coming.”

“You’re going to die tomorrow Lord Bolton.” Sansa stated simply, her eyes peeled on the Direwolf’s severed head on the ground before her. Without waiting on the other men, she turned and began to ride back to camp. As one, the Stark delegation followed suit.

“Brienne must have made it through safely,” Jaime said, riding beside Jon. “Or he would have gloated. That man is not one for humility.”

“We can only hope we gave her enough time.” his companion nodded, eyes filled with grief. The first drops began to fall as the storm broke.

***  
The rain was pelting down in a heavy deluge by the time they were back in their own camp. As Jon and Davos ducked away for one final discussion, Jaime surreptitiously stole his way into Sansa’s tent, where she was still in the midst of removing her fur cloak.

“You might want to keep that on.” Jaime tried to ignore the freezing water dripping down his neck.

“Why?” she asked in surprise. 

Closing the distance between the two of them, Jaime wrapped an arm around her and pressed his mouth against hers, putting every last ounce of longing and regret into his actions. He tried his best to memorize the feel of her soft lips, the curve of her hip, the way she tangled her fingers in his hair. The lady would not however, be put off. 

“Jaime what’s happening?” she asked breathlessly, worriedly.

“You are to go with Ser Davos. You will wait somewhere safe during the battle,” he released her. If he touched her now, he would never be able let go. Taking a deep breath, he continued. “If we lose, you are to follow him to White Harbour, and from there, to Braavos.”

“I’m not leaving,” she said, voice tampered with unshed tears. Stepping close, she placed a hand on his chest. “You swore you to me you would see me safe,”

“You are leaving. I am keeping you safe. _Promise_ me you’ll keep yourself safe Sansa,” Jamie demanded, gripping her small hand. “Swear to me, as I once swore to you.”

“I…” she looked close to breaking down. Outside her tent, they could hear the voices of Jon and Davos approaching. 

“I swear.” she said at last. She pressed a quick, desperate kiss to his lips. “Come back to me Jaime…please.”

There was nothing Jaime could say that would not sound like a hollow promise. With one last squeeze of her hand, he stood away from her. When Jon found them, he took in the red eyes of his sister, and the abject misery of Jaime.

“It’s for your own good.” Jon tried a wavering smile. “If I die, it doesn’t matter. I’m just a bastard. You have to carry on - you’ll be the last surviving Stark.”

Flinging herself into her brother’s arms, Sansa held on for a long time. Davos looked away in embarrassment, trying to pretend he was not witnessing this parting of ways. Finally, she separated herself and wiped at her nose with her sleeve like a young girl.“Be careful Jon. Don’t let Ramsay get under your skin.” 

Satisfied by his firm nod, Sansa finally allowed herself to be led away by Davos, although not without casting longing looks back at the two men.

“Lannister…” Jon started once they were alone. Jaime waited for the irate sentiments. “If we survive this, I swear by the old gods and the new, you will do right by Sansa.”

“What exactly are you proposing Jon Snow?” Jaime could not help but laugh. The only response he received was a thunderous expression.

“If you are half the clever man you think you are, you won’t wear that bloody golden hand into battle in the morning.” Jon said tersely, walking out of the tent. “It’ll be the first damned thing Ramsay will be looking for. And I swear, I will not see my sister crying because of you.”

Startled, Jaime looked down his right arm, seeing the truth of Jon's words even as he cursed at his own arrogance.


	12. Ophelia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a bad rendition of the Battle of the Bastards.
> 
> There's nudity.
> 
> There's some campy fun murder times.
> 
> There's a Buffy Quote.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Penultimate is my second favourite word" - this is the penultimate chapter.

_”Never go for the kill when you can go for the pain” Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Selfless_  
***

By the time morning rolled around, the rains had let up, and the clouds were starting to clear. 

“’Tis a good sign.” Tormund grunted as they stepped on the muddy field. “Mayhaps the Gods favour us. Will that giant golden woman be fighting beside us today?”

“Well, as far as last words go, those would do I suppose,” Jaime said sardonically, seated atop his horse. His hook, firmly strapped to his right wrist, felt lighter, almost less natural than the golden hand.

“Lighten up my boy. Either we live or we die.” the Wildling grunted. “Though I would’ve liked to lay my eyes on her one last time. Fine woman. Our babies would have been fearsome indeed.”

Jaime opened his mouth, then quickly realized there was absolutely nothing he could say in response to that sentiment. Beside him, Jon was barely able to rein in his helpless laughter.

The towers of Winterfell rose on the horizon, behind the assembled might of the Bolton host. Between both armies, burning crosses dotted the field. The smell of burning human flesh was unmistakable in the crisp air of the morning.

“Animals.” Jaime spat. The disgust in Tormund’s eyes said everything.

“Do we wait for a sign from Yohn Royce?” Jon asked, dark eyes scanning the enemy lines.

“No. We wait on the enemy to come to us. If we’re very lucky, by the time they decide to charge, the Lord of Runestone will be on their backs.” Jaime reminded him. 

In the distance, a slight figure broke from the ranks of the Bolton army, and began to run across the field towards them. It look a moment for Jaime to understand what was happening, but Jon was already sitting up with a look of utmost dread.

“It’s a trap. He means to rattle us before the fight even begins.” Jaime hissed, trying to get the other man to look him the the eye.

“That’s Rickon. That’s my brother.” Jon said in horror. They watched as Rickon Stark raced towards them, stumbling every few seconds as he tried to avoid the arrows a familiar figure was releasing from the other end of the battlefield.

“Jon, think!” Jaime ground out. “You have to think!”

“We have to wait. The entire battle depends on it.” Tormund cautioned. “If we break now, we may lose the entire battle before its even begun.”

“What if it were _your_ brother? Or your son?” Jon asked, frantic eyes falling on the knight by his side and on the Wildling man. 

Jaime turned his gaze back towards the young Stark boy. The image before him wavered, and suddenly, it was sweet Tommen, dashing towards him in terror, reaching desperately for his hand. 

There was a pounding of hooves, and Jon was off, galloping towards his kin.

_The Others take the Starks and their stupidity._ Jaime fumed.

“Hold!” he shouted, racing his steed along the lines of Stark loyalists. “Hold the line!”

To his relief, the men held, albeit with much nervous muttering. Jaime turned and watched in horror as Jon reached a hand out to Rickon, only for the boy to abruptly crumple to the ground like a rag doll. One of Ramsay’s arrows had finally found its mark. 

Somewhere, from a vantage point he himself had picked, Jaime knew Sansa was watching. Somewhere, she had just seen her brother murdered before her very eyes. 

The arrows were raining down now. Jon was on the ground, holding Rickon as if he could will the boy back to life. Finally, he stood up in the middle of the battlefield, sword drawn and ready like a damned fool, even as the Bolton horsemen began to charge.

Then, Jaime’s sharp eyes spied the first signs of hope. There was a flurry of movement on the other side of the field, the faraway sound of men screaming in shock and the unmistakable noise of men dying. 

The Knights of the Eyrie had arrived.

“For Winterfell! For the North!” Jaime shouted, raising Oathkeeper as he slapped the reins of his horse. Behind him, the Northern host clamoured, racing after him. 

The knight did not make it very far; a well placed arrow found his horse, sending the animal listing drunkenly to the side with a loud bray of pain. For a few breathless seconds, all Jaime could see was blue sky as he fell backwards. Forcing himself to stay in the moment, he rolled over and onto his feet, before running onwards with the other soldiers.

With little ceremony, the battle was fully joined.

***

The fighting was furious, and men on both sides were being slaughtered by the hundreds. Soldiers who could not find the Stranger’s brutal kiss lay on the ground, weeping and whimpering for their mothers. Bloody hands pressed on open wounds as if that alone would be enough to hold their insides in.

Twice, Jaime found himself outnumbered, but he fought as a man possessed. His sword stabbed and hacked and cut, while his hook slashed open living flesh. His vambraces were ripped, and he bled from wounds where he was not protected by steel or leather.

Once, he thought he saw Podrick lying motionless on the ground, eyes wide and staring, but when he blinked, it was just the face of another boy soldier, dead in the dirt. A few times, he found himself by the wench’s side, or Jon’s side, saving their lives or having his own saved by them.

Even surrounded by the dead and the dying, even suffocated by the overwhelming iron stench of blood, Jaime knew they were winning. The Stark loyalists were winning.

“For the North!” he screamed more than once, a cry taken up by other soldiers around him.

A horn sounded in the distance.

***

Jaime swung, only to find his foe already dead, an arrow sticking out the base of his skull. All around, his allies were either standing in blank fatigue, or finishing off the last surviving enemies. A short distance away, Jon stared at the carnage in stunned silence, face covered in dirt, and blood, and sweat.

“Where’s Bolton?” Jaime called hoarsely, unwilling to sheathe his weapon. There was still a debt of blood owed, and a Lannister always pays his debts.

“I saw a small party retreating behind the walls of Winterfell,” the wench called from behind. Her light hair was matted with dried blood, and an oozing cut lacerated her left cheekbone. “I’d wager that craven bastard went with them.”

“It’s time we cut that worm from your father’s home, wouldn’t you say?” Jaime called to Jon, who snapped out of his daze. 

The three of them began to march for the gates of Winterfell, followed by the remainder of their men. Looking around, Jaime could see that they had lost much, though not as many as he had genuinely feared they would. Close behind, the Wilding giant - incongruously named Wun-Wun - followed with booming steps.

The doors to the castle were shut and barricaded. From the crenelated gaps of the watchtowers, arrows began to fly towards them. The Wulls knelt down and nocked their longbows, before letting loose their returning volley. The onslaught stopped after a time.

Wun Wun approached the heavy doors and kicked once. Twice. With a mighty crash, the doors splintered and broke. Within, Jaime could see the pathetic remnants of Ramsay’s army. The rest must have scattered the moment they realized the battle was forfeit.

Too late however, did he see the bow in the bastard’s hand, or the arrow that came flying out at them. Brienne gave a soft cry and fell to the ground, clutching at her right shoulder. Without even pausing, Jaime sheathed his sword, and found himself reaching for a spear that impaled a corpse. Pulling the weapon free, with an accuracy borne of pure rage, he flung the weapon and waited for the satisfying thud of cracking bone.

*** 

Ramsay keened long and loud as he fell to the ground, clutching at his thigh. The spear had impaled him deeply, with the haft sticking out his bleeding flesh.

Stalking up to the pretender lord, Jaime crouched down and grabbed the shaft of the spear he had thrown, twisting viciously as he did so. Ramsay released another high pitched yowl of pain and agony like some tormented animal. The Bolton bastard panted heavily, as if he had just run for miles. 

“Lannister,” Jon spoke quietly. There was a look of murderous fury in the other man’s eyes. 

*** 

He felt her before he saw her.

Turning, he watched as Sansa slowly approached, her eyes fixed on the Bolton bastard laying on the ground, barely holding on to consciousness. The man’s face was a bloody mess, and it was clear at least two bones in his face had been smashed. Jon knelt over him, fists swollen and covered in gore.

“Is it over?” she murmured, eyes brimming with unshed tears. “Is it done?”

Jon and Sansa shared a look of disbelief and shock. Jaime looked backwards as Brienne staggered towards him, face ashen but determined. Blood dripped down her arm, seeping slowly into the dirt. Very slowly, she fell to her knees, before collapsing fully.

“Help…please, somebody! Help!” Jaime found his voice, raw as it was. He hurled himself to the wench’s side in blinding panic.

The grounds burst into activity. The battle was won; it was time now, for the poison to be purged.

***

When he was certain that the wench did not suffer from a mortal wound, and when an uninjured Podrick insisted that he would stand guard over Brienne, only then did he allow himself to be guided away by the burly maester of Winterfell to his own guest chambers. In the flood of activity that had ensued as Brienne was carried inside the keep, he had caught glimpses of a wild eyed Sansa, attempting to push her way towards him and the wench.

The guest room was hastily prepared, he could see even with his tired eyes. Sheets were haphazardly strewn, rushes were fresh but lumped in uneven piles…however, the sight of the roaring hearth was comforting. Sinking onto the edge of the bed, the knight allowed himself to be poked and prodded with extreme forbearance. Piece by piece, his armour was removed, and the damage was assessed. He heard a lot of muttering under the older man’s breath, followed by sighs of relief. 

“Ser, you suffer from a few minor cuts. At least one of them would have caused you to bleed out on the field had it even been an inch to the right,” the maester tapped at a wound on Jaime’s right forearm. “The Gods clearly are not finished with you.”

“Is that a promise, or a threat?” Jaime wondered aloud. Taken aback, the other man smiled uncomfortably as he bowed, before hurrying away, no doubt to see to the hundreds of other men who had need of his services.

A large bowl of steaming water stood beside the large bed. Dragging his bruised form over, he stripped himself slowly and picked up the washcloth draped over the bowl’s lip. With dogged perseverance, he cleaned himself as thoroughly as he could, rinsing the cloth over and over, until the water was muddied beyond use.

Letting the cloth fall from his fingers, Jaime fell backwards onto the soft mattress and rolled over, allowing dreamless sleep to take him in her soft embrace.

***

There was an unfamiliar stone ceiling above him. 

“You’re awake,” a soft voice said from beside the fire. There was a rustle of skirts, before the mattress sank to his left. “Gods I thought perhaps…I was so worried…”

Tilting his head, he caught sight of Sansa’s blue eyes staring down at him with apprehension and affection. He reached his right arm up, and remembered too late that his hook had been lost during the melee, and he had no idea where his golden hand was. There was nothing but a stump at the end of that arm.

Hastily, he made to pull back, but Sansa held onto him, running her fingers over the smooth skin where his flesh had healed. Her tear-filled eyes were fixed on his own. 

_The woman didn’t even notice the stump_ , he realized with a strange start, pushing himself up to a seated position. 

“You shouldn’t be in here,” he said softly. “People will talk.”

“They’re already talking,” she smiled a watery smile, reaching to smooth his hair. If she did not leave quickly, Jaime was quite certain he would do something rash. 

“Is Brienne…” he started. 

“She’s well. She’s quite put out by Podrick at the moment, but she’s well.” Sansa smiled faintly. “Tormund is lurking by her door as we speak.”

“Ah yes. How tragic for a man to live through a battle, only to die by the hand of the woman he loves,” Jaime quipped. His expression turned serious. “I’m sorry about what happened to Rickon…”

“I saw…I saw what happened,” she stuttered, her face crumpling every so slightly. “I watched as Jon fell to his knees by our brother’s body.”

“Sansa I wish I could have…” he never got to finish his sentence; Sansa’s lips were pressed hard against his own, urgent and warm. Groaning, he reached up with his left hand and carded his fingers into her thick tresses.

“I saw you fall…” she shuddered, not quite holding in her sobs as his lips burned a trail down her neck, the salt of her tears on his lips. “I saw you fall Jaime…”

“I’m here…I’m still here” he murmured assuringly against her skin, kissing the hollow of her throat.

Even as he spoke, he was pulling Sansa so she straddled his hips with her thighs. His sheets had long since slipped away. Steadying her with his right arm, his left hand drifted to the ties that held her dress together.

“I promised you that when I took you, it would be in your chambers, in Winterfell.” he fought to hold on to the last vestiges of his restraint. 

“I am the Lady of Winterfell…” she smiled suddenly through her tears, fierce as a wolf, all hesitance forgotten for the moment. “Every chamber in Winterfell _is_ my chamber.”

Growling low in his throat, Jaime’s fingers made quick work of the layers of her dress. Pushing aside the woollen material gently, he allowed himself to gaze upon her young breasts.

Her breath hitched, fear mixed with arousal…and shame. 

Red scars pocked her otherwise flawless skin, even over her pale nipples. Some extended down towards her belly, close to the auburn curls that peeked from the juncture where her thighs met. 

_Did he cut you?_ Petyr’s voice rasped in his mind.

The familiar rage at the ills visited upon her fragile body kindled deep within his belly, momentarily dousing his desire. Sansa must have mistook the disgust on his face for something else as she surveyed him. With shaking hands, she reached for her clothes and made to wrap the stiff material back around her body, swallowing hard in disappointment. Quickly, he stilled her movements with a soft kiss to her knuckles.

“Don’t…” he whispered, letting his hand drift onto her warm skin, stroking each mark gently. He pushed her clothing so they fell off her body and slid off the edge of the bed. “You’re beautiful…by the gods, you’re so very beautiful…” 

Carefully, he rolled their bodies so she lay under him. Running his fingers over her scars, he kissed each and every one, worshipping her form as best as he could. He suckled on each stiff nipple until her breathing came in hot, uneven spurts, while his good hand reached between her silky thighs. Clever fingers brushed over the small nub at the moist tip of her cleft. 

The woman gasped in surprise, arching her hips towards his touch. 

Not a single reaction he had elicited from her so far had been calculated to seduce or to entice, but Jaime found himself both seduced and enticed. 

A traitorous part of his thoughts drifted to Cersei for a moment, how every last gasp, every last caress was aimed to draw his lust to breaking point.

Determinedly, he crawled upwards and kissed her deeply, allowing the memory of Cersei to be dispelled by the sweetness that was all Sansa. 

“You can still tell me to stop,” Jaime managed to gasp, although if she did, he wasn’t sure exactly, what he was to do. “You can still…”

Wordlessly, she pulled his mouth back onto hers, swallowing his pathetic attempt at chivalry. Her legs slowly opened to him, as though she were deliberately willing herself to trust him. Clumsily, Jaime shifted himself between them, allowing the tip of his painfully erect cock to brush against her opening. As slowly as he could, Jaime pushed himself inside her, until he was buried to the hilt.

The look of pleasurable surprise on her face almost made him laugh, but for the fact that he had an inkling she would never forgive him for it. Very carefully, he began to move inside her, and thus, began to lose all semblance of control.

“Sansa…” he breathed, fighting to keep from himself from driving into her with abandon. He wanted desperately to show her how it could be, wanted to replace her nightmares with something else, something better. 

But then she twisted her own body under his, artlessly trying to find her own pleasure…and he was lost. Increasing his pace, Jaime thrust harder, pushing into her, branding himself into her very skin. He wanted desperately, for her to come before he found his own completion, and to his satisfaction, she keened against him at last, hips lifting off the mattress as she ground her body hard against his. Before long, he was collapsing against her, spilling his seed onto the sheets beneath them. Wary of smothering her, Jaime rolled away as quickly as he could, an apology already on his lips.

Whatever he had been about to say died on his lips at sight of the blissful peace that had settled on her brow. 

“Are you…” he felt like an adolescent fool. She reached out and stroked his stubbled chin, eyes already fluttering shut. Sighing, Jaime allowed himself too, to fall to slumber. Pulling her small body against his, he murmured, “My girl…my brave, beautiful girl…”

***

When next he awoke, the fire had already burned down to a smouldering pile of ashes on the hearth…and Jaime was alone. His first instinct was one of fear, drowning out the sweetness of the last few hours.

As he gazed about him, his breathing calmed and his heart stopped pounding. It was unlikely that enemies would have left him sleeping soundly, with furs pulled over him, guarding carefully his warmth and comfort. Clean clothing was laid out for him at the foot of the bed, next to his golden hand.

Dressing himself, Jaime looked out the window that hung ajar and frowned. Dawn was on its way, but not for another hour or so. It annoyed him that he had woken without an armful of woman…whose whereabouts he was currently unaware of. 

The man stepped softly from his quarters before stealing silently down the cold hallway. Eventually, he found himself upon the bridge between the Keep and the Great Hall. On the walls of Winterfell, white banners bearing the sigil of the silver Direwolf fluttered in the chill morning breeze. 

Jaime looked down into the courtyard, and watched as a slender figure wrapped in furs walked in the direction of the kennels, footsteps leaving marks in the ever-thickening layer of snow.

It wasn’t a pretty picture, not least because this was clearly, yet another matter she sought to keep to herself. He was loathe to admit that her penchant for secrets reminded him too much of Cersei, and her endless machinations. Perhaps the setting may have changed, and perhaps the players were different, but it suddenly felt as if he were watching the same story playing out before him once again.

Carefully, he found his way down, and treaded softly in the direction Sansa had gone. He stopped when he came upon the voices of Sansa…and Ramsay. 

“…I’m inside you now, and I will always be a part of you. Fucking some Lannister cunt won't change that.” the bastard’s sneering voice floated out of the reeking kennels.

“You’re wrong.” Sansa said flatly, emotionlessly. “Your words will disappear. Your house will disappear. Your name will disappear. All memory of you _will_ disappear.”

“Perhaps all you say is true. But do tell me _wife_ , does your lover know what sweet, innocent Sansa Stark intends to do with me?” Ramsay’s voice was coated in bile. 

That same leonine smile that had so discomfited Ramsay on the field before, stole onto Jaime’s face as he stepped away from the shadows and strolled towards Sansa. She looked over her shoulder in surprise. Wrapping his right arm around her waist and pulling her flush against him, he dipped low and kissed her slowly, languorously. His golden hand gleamed in the dim light.

In the cage before them, Ramsay’s fury was unmistakable.

“Get your hands off my woman you degenerate fuck,” the man hissed through broken teeth, his scarred face further contorted in rage. Jaime laughed openly at the bastard’s utter impotence.

“In your worst nightmares, I’m sure you never dreamed what it would be like, when the Lion and the Wolf aligned against you as one.” Jaime drawled, pulling Sansa even closer. He peered through the metal bars where the hounds were already slavering at the bastard’s feet. 

The first dog grew brave enough to straddle its heavy, stinking body on its master’s lap, ignoring Ramsay’s protests. 

_All that blood…he must simply smell like meat to those mutts_ , Jaime thought dispassionately. 

The screams followed in quick succession. 

Jaime did not fail to notice the faint smile on Sansa’s face, or how beautiful she looked in the firelight - and how all of it made his stomach twist just a little in unexpected fear.

Yet. When he thought of the scars on her body; when he remembered Jon’s despair as he cradled his brother’s lifeless body; when he considered Rickon Stark’s terror as he ran from a death he could never have escaped…

Every scream felt like justice, he decided with finality, burying his face in Sansa’s neck and breathing her in, taking her into his very lungs.


	13. Checkmate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime is all about that Godswood.
> 
> Jaime is all about his issues with relationships.
> 
> Jaime and Sansa have a fight so they can have make up sex.
> 
> There is blatant lifting of quotes from the finale of Season 6.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for everyone's nice comments. Here's the final chapter for this story...hope you all don't hate it.

The Godswood was the sole place in all of Winterfell not overrun by men and women working hard on restoring the castle to at least a semblance of its former glory. The ground was covered in snow, yet steam still rose out of the heated pools in ghostly wisps, lending a further otherworldly atmosphere to the walled forest.

Jaime ambled through, pleasantly surprised by the beauty he was surrounded by. 

“I take it you like this place,” Sansa’s voice was warm with affection as she watched him from under the weirwood tree. “Does our heathen place of worship not offend your sensibilities?”

He snorted in response. “All temples and septs offend my sensibilities. The Gods have yet to give a fig about the fates of their worshippers.”

Sansa smiled as she looked upon the heart tree wistfully, tracing the shape of the face that had been carved into the wood. Slowly, she turned and settled on a large rock. "I came here every day when I was a girl. I prayed to be somewhere else. Back then I only thought about what I wanted, never about what I had. I was a stupid girl."

“You are not that girl. Not anymore.” Jaime said gently. There was a sadness in his tone he could not quite hide.

“Perhaps.” Sansa’s forehead knitted into a frown as her thoughts went to other matters. “We’ll have to face those people soon. All who declared for us, and all who followed Ramsay. I am of half a mind to advise Jon that the traitors should be executed or disinherited. It would have been what Father would have done.”

“There are other ways to deal with faithless vassals,” Jaime said lightly, not looking at Sansa as he strolled to the edge of the pools. 

“I seem to recall a song. It’s about how _your_ family treats with those that would seek to dishonour their oaths of fealty.” Sansa reminded him. “I heard it so often in the Red Keep, I could probably sing it to you.”

“I would prefer if you did no such thing My Lady,” Jaime chose his words carefully. “But I would like to point out – the Rains of Castamere is about a _single_ family’s wrongdoing. The song bought us the obedience, if not the loyalty of our our vassals. Mark the difference.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her lapsing into thought as she considered his words. 

“Moreover, it is imperative to remember that although we have won the battle…there is still the war to think of.”

“The war.” She looked a little desolate.

“Your brother has hinted as to what we can expect from the North. It all sounds rather like a nightmarish fantasy…” Jaime turned to look her full in the face. “But he doesn’t seem quite the sort of man given to flights of fancy.”

“Not Jon,” Sansa shook her head, a small weary smile touching her lips. “I used to think he had no kind of fancy in him whatsover. I don’t expect that has changed all that much.”

“If not monsters from the North…I don’t expect my own sister to be quite so…forgiving.” Jaime said.

Cersei had no great love of the Starks, and certainly, already laboured under the assumption that both Sansa and Tyrion had plotted Joffrey’s death. Jaime shuddered to think of her wrath, once his sister understood what was transpiring in the frigid North between himself and Sansa…or what had already transpired. 

“There is much to speak of with Jon. I’m sure he’ll make the right decisions for our family.” Sansa said quietly. Jaime wondered if she truly meant or believed that Jon would lead them wisely; as for himself, he remembered the deeds of Lord Eddard Stark, and how very alike Jon and Ned seemed to be. 

But this was not his house, and these were not his lands or vassals, he thought, strolling into the thick copse of trees, marvelling at the wintry grace of the frozen boughs overhead. 

***

Every garden however pristine, had a snake. From his vantage point hidden in the small forest, Jaime could see Petyr Baelish entering the clearing, approaching the Lady of Winterfell with a solicitous smile.

“Forgive me, my lady... if you're at prayer.”

“I’m done with all that.” Sansa replied curtly, not standing to receive him.

Jaime observed Littlefinger’s surprise at the cool reception he had just received. The man was standing far too close to the lady, the knight thought with rising irritation; watching Baelish blatantly undressing Sansa with his hungry grey eyes did nothing to quell his anger.

 _She was not for any other man to want,_ Jaime thought possesively.

“Sansa, I was glad you called for my help – I was glad to pledge my service to your cause.” Littlefinger clasped his hands behind his back.

“I believe it was Lord Royce I summoned.” The Lady of Winterfell gave him a measuring look. “Petyr, is there something you wanted?”

“I thought you knew what I wanted.” His voice developed a husky timbre that caused Jaime’s jaw to clench tightly; his left hand gripped convulsively on the handle of his dagger. When Sansa said nothing, the Lord of the Fingers continued. “Every time I'm faced with a decision I close my eyes and see the same picture. Whenever I consider an action I ask myself, 'will this help make this picture a reality? I only act if the answer is "yes".”

“I’m rather afraid to ask what that picture might be.” Sansa said drily. Either the little Lord did not notice her unfriendly tone, or he chose wilfully to ignore it. 

“It is a picture of me on the Iron Throne... and you by my side.” He rasped, leaning in with the clear intention of kissing her. The knight’s eyes widened in rage, as a dangerous mix of fury and jealousy boiled inside of him. 

_Enough of this farce_. Jaime stepped into the clearing to greet the shocked Lord Protector of the Eyrie.

“Lord Baelish.” The knight greeted coldly, stalking towards him. Littlefinger took in the sight of Jaime gripping the handle of his weapon, and the thunderous look the larger man was fixing on him. 

“Ser Jaime,” Petyr tipped his chin as he regained his composure. “I had not expected that you would still be here, not now that Lady Sansa has been rightfully restored to her ancestral home.”

“Didn’t expect that I’d still be here, or that I’d still be alive?” Jaime asked. “Do you know, I was just thinking of my last conversation with Ramsay Bolton right before the battle…the man did not seem the least bit surprised by my presence. Is it possible, do you think, that someone may have told him to expect me?”

“Ser Jaime makes a very good point.” Sansa said softly. 

“There were thousands of men marching with you, Ser Jaime,” Baelish said smoothly, his ingratiating smile affixed firmly to his face. “Most with no love for the Lannisters. Any one of them could have informed Ramsay.”

“Are you suggesting that there are traitors amongst our loyalists?” Sansa asked archly. 

“My Lady, I would never dream of doing anything that might have jeopardized Ser Jaime’s life, or your efforts to re-take Winterfell,” Petyr adopted the hurt tones of an insulted man. “Especially not now, when his family needs him so very badly, at this very moment.”

Jaime said nothing, staring stone-faced at Littlefinger.

“Your sister…she faces the wrath of the Faith Militant.” Petyr continued, voice dripping with sorrow. “They plan to put her on trial for treason against the crown. Jaime, your sister needs you.”

The Faith Militant. 

While it was true that Tyrion and Cersei had always enjoyed the droning voices of their tutors more than he ever did, he had for a time, paid attention to the lessons regarding the Order of The Sword and the Star. That the mighty Targaryens themselves had been stung by the flails of houseless vagrants had been fascinating to Jaime. The Faith Militant’s brutal putdown at the hands of Maegor the Cruel had been well documented in great and bloody detail.

Most would be hard-pressed to imagine what ruler would be foolish enough to return the Order to power. Most, however, did not know Cersei Lannister - not the way he knew her. His heart wrenched painfully at the thought of her suffering. 

But Jaime could not forget that because of her spite, her pettiness, her cruelty, their only daughter was dead, and that knowledge soured greatly, the memory of his love for her.

“So my sweet sister has brought more catastrophe on herself.” Jaime’s voice betrayed nothing. “I’m afraid I have not the resources to lend her my protection.”

Unease flared in Petyr’s grey eyes. It was not the response he had imagined he would elicit. Sansa once again put herself in front of Jaime in an unmistakably protective gesture, causing the shorter man’s eyes to dart furiously between the two before him. Resentment began to bloom in his features as understanding began to sink in; he looked like a man whose favourite toy had been snatched from his hands.

“Lord Baelish, I thank you for your service. I have no wish to consider further, any pictures you may seek to paint for me.” Sansa said stiffly. “If you would be so kind as to excuse us, Ser Jaime and I have other matters to attend to.” 

With that, Littlefinger was left alone in the Godswood staring after them in mounting ire. 

“My Lady, if you don’t mind my saying,” Jaime started once they were alone. “I do believe it is past due for the value of certain tools to be re-examined.”

“Your counsel as always, is appreciated…and in this case, you are correct.” Sansa nodded grimly. “Come. We must speak with my brother.”

***

The Great Hall was filled with every last Northern Lord, most of whom had taken it into their heads to begin openly lobbing insults at one another. Old grievances were being aired, new betrayals were being contested, but they all agreed on one thing. Ironically, it was Yohn Royce who gave voice to that shared discontent.

“You can't expect the Knights of the Vale to side with Wildling invaders.” The pompous man declared, his face as red as a ripe tomato. Of course, this set off a rumble of anger from the side of the Wildlings, which led Jon to wade into the fray.

It was all rote and clichéd, and Jaime was finding himself growing bored as he surveyed the room from his place behind Sansa. The knight could think of much better things to do…most of them, he thought with a barely concealed smirk, involving the Lady of Winterfell herself. Glancing at the rabbling mass, he caught sight of Brienne, who sat propped up against the wall of the keep, trying to ignore Tormund’s obvious efforts to endear himself to the wench. 

“The war is not over.” Sansa said sharply, regaining Jaime’s attention. The entire room fell silent before her. “Are any of you listening to my brother? If we don’t stand together, we will fall, whether to dead men, or to the armies of the South.”

“Lady Sansa…” Lord Manderly started, his tone more than a little condescending.

“She’s the Lady Stark.” Jaime interrupted genially. “You _will_ address her accordingly.”

“I didn’t ask for the opinion of a Lannis…” the Northern Lord started.

“He has more right to speak here, on this floor, than you, Lord Manderly.” Another voice said from the front. Surprised, Jaime turned his gaze to find Lyanna Mormont on her feet, somehow staring down the much older Lord. “He fought for the North and he fought for the Stark banner. As I recall, you did not. Your son was butchered at the Red Wedding, Lord Manderly, but you refused the call. You swore allegiance to House Stark, Lord Glover, but in their hour of greatest need, you refused the call. And you, Lord Cerwyn, your father was skinned alive by Ramsay Bolton. Still you refused the call. But House Mormont remembers. The North remembers. We know no king but the King in the North whose name is Stark.”

The occupants of the room looked to each other in consternation. Tucked away in the shadows, Jaime could see Littlefinger assessing the situation with avid interest.

“That doesn’t sound quite right…should it not be the Queen in the North whose name is Stark?” Jon asked. Jaime’s green eyes widened, even as Sansa looked up at Jon in frank alarm. “My Lords, we would never have won Winterfell, if not for my sister’s unwavering wisdom and courage. Her stubbornness, in fact, saved all our lives.” Here he smiled faintly at his younger sister, who continued to gape in disbelief at him. “Our victory is owed almost entirely to her.”

“Follow a woman?” Lord Tallhart asked aloud. 

“Do you take issue with that notion?” Lyanna asked, her high girlish voice never more dangerous. The older man open and shut his mouth, unable to think of a response that would not earn him more ire. Turning her small face to the dais, the Lady of Bear Island declared, “I stand with Jon Snow. Sansa Stark is my Queen, from this day until her last day.”

Sansa stood up on unsteady legs, even as Jon knelt before her, offering his sword. One by one, every last Lord followed, though the Wildlings seemed content to remain seated.

When he was a boy, all Jaime had wanted was to serve the King. A good King, who would teach him the meaning of nobility, bravery, and goodness. All those dreams, they had come to naught so laughably quickly, it made his head spin. Staring at Sansa, at the woman who had given him back his honour, Jaime realized: there was no other King or Queen he could serve. Not willingly.

Falling to one knee, Oathkeeper held out in tribute, he met her wide eyes looking back at him in wonder and gratitude.

“Queen in the North!” the men cried. “The Queen in the North!”

***

When the cries finally died down, Sansa remained standing. As the minutes had passed, her hands had ceased their trembling. Her back was straight and her chin was lifted.

“I thank you for your faith in me. I will not fail you.” She said in a clear voice. “As your Queen, I will do all that is in my power to serve and protect us.”

There was another round of cheers that died down as she raised a hand. “We are all unfortunately aware that we have had unrest in our midst. Treason even. Treason that must now be met with justice.”

Jaime and Jon looked gazed in understanding at each other, over Sansa’s head. Like deadly shadows, they stalked into the midst of the suddenly nervous crowd. The Karstarks, Umbers and Ryswells looked particularly pale. Jaime felt rather sorry for the scions of Karstark and Umber – they were mere children, and did not deserve this.

“I call for Petyr Baelish to be brought forth for the Queen’s judgement.” Sansa’s voice rang like a bell. 

Littlefinger’s head snapped up, realizing that the Queen’s men were bearing down on him alone. Strong hands reached for his upper arms even as he tried to back away. 

_Exactly like a snake_ , Jaime thought, hauling the squirming lord before Sansa. 

“Sansa please, I have always ever served you, and looked to protect you.” Littlefinger protested. 

“You betrayed me to the Boltons.” Her eyes were as cold as steel. “But that’s not all is it? You murdered my Aunt Lysa before my very eyes…your wife, and the Lady Regent of the Vale. Right after you kissed me.”

Jaime’s hand tightened on Petyr’s arm, hard enough he could feel the bones beneath his flesh splintering. Jon, to his other side, looked down at Littlefinger in a pitiless glare. Gasping in pain, the Lord Protector of the Vale twisted in the iron grip of the Queen’s men. 

“Lady Stark, you told us…” Lord Royce 

“I know what I said.” Sansa interrupted. “But if you recall, I had just seen my Aunt die at the hands of Lord Baelish…who threatened to kill me as well, if I didn’t swear to obey his every word.” 

Something in the way Sansa told this part of the story rang false to Jaime. Perhaps it was the way her hands wrung together; perhaps it was in the slight tremor in her voice, which no one else seemed to hear. But he had no intention of questioning her. Regardless of what actually occurred, Littlefinger had, in point of fact, sold her into the hands of a monster who then thought nothing of raping and hurting her. A monster who had rendered her helpless and hopeless.

The memory of Petyr gleefully telling him of Myrcella’s death was still clear in Jaime’s mind. Littlefinger had built his entire life on the misery of others; what he suffered now, barely compared.

“For the crime of treason and murder, Petyr Baelish…I sentence you to die.” Sansa pronounced flatly.

“Sansa please…I love you.” The man begged, as reality finally made itself clear to him. 

“No Petyr…you loved my mother…” she said quietly. “But my mother is dead. She’s been dead for a long time now.”

Littlefinger’s eyes searched for a sympathetic face in the crowd, but found not one. Looking up at Jaime, he babbled, “Ser Jaime, I kept your secrets. I kept the secrets of you and your…”

But then he was gurgling, choking on his own blood. Jaime had moved quickly, running the blade of his sharpened dagger across the man’s throat. Both men released him, allowing his body to slump to the ground, hands clawing against the cold stone. Jon looked down in contempt, the evidence of of his own rage evident on his features. 

When all life had left his body, Sansa looked at her subjects, all of whom had remained utterly silent throughout the ordeal.

“I seek to protect the North from all who look to harm us, or betray us.” Her eyes lingered momentarily on those who had declared for the Boltons, before they moved on. “I will look to guard us from our enemies, wheresoever they come from. I swear it, by the old Gods and the new.”

“Queen in the North!” someone shouted again. The cry was picked up, and repeated over and over. On the ground, Petyr’s eyes stared blankly in death until his body was removed unceremoniously. Whereupon even the blood he had left behind became lost under the heels of the Northern houses, leaving no trace that he had ever been present to begin with.

***

Jaime was no stranger to desiring a Queen. Too often he had stood behind Robert and Cersei, mapping the curve of her neck, the twist of her wrists. Of course, Cersei would never think to cast him a single glance when they were in the presence of others - the risk was too great, she would remind him over and over. 

In the Great Hall of Winterfell, Sansa listened closely to the words of her subjects, and every so often, she would glance at him, bestowing not-so-secret smiles. As the day wore on, and as the conversations with the Lords and Ladies of the land continued, the smiles grew wearier, but still, they persisted. 

If the Northern host had any opinion on the regard their new Queen bore for the son of Tywin Lannister, they said nothing, although there was the occasional bemused glance, or dark glare. Truth be told, the men he had fought alongside seemed a lot less hostile in their treatment of him. The ones who didn’t, the ones who had either fought for the other side, or fought not at all, were far more concerned in securing their future favour. 

Jon, predictably, cast him the same irritated look each time Sansa looked towards Jaime, but the knight could see that the man was growing more distracted and anxious with every passing second. 

“My Lords, these are not wild or fancy tales. Summon the men of the Night’s Watch, if you won’t listen to my words, or the words of the Wildlings.” Jon reiterated harshly, over and over. “We have all seen it. We have all fought the dead, and they are coming for the living.”

“The Wall has always protected us,” they would in their turn, repeat with wide eyes, every syllable laced in denial. 

“Even if the dead weren’t coming, we still have enemies to the South.” Sansa stated firmly. “We cannot afford to be complacent. Now is the time we must prepare.”

“We must look to add to the ranks of soldiers.” Jaime added. The tally of men who were able to wield a sword was being added up, and the numbers concerned him to no small degree. There were more people living in Flea Bottom, than there were able soldiers in the North. “Every boy capable of picking up a weapon must be trained.”

“And every girl.” Jon said. “All resources must be looked to.”

“You expect our daughters to bear arms?” Lord Norrey cried in outrage. 

“We expect your daughters to survive.” Ser Davos said gruffly, not mincing his words as always.

Supper came and went, although much of it was spent arguing with the stubborn lieges of the North. When the last Lord departed the Great Hall, Sansa stood up, looking as if she herself had only just fought a thousand battles. 

“Brother, you did me a disservice, pronouncing me Queen,” she chided, although Jaime could see it was spoken in jest.

“Better you than me your Grace.” Jon said absently, thoughts still pre-occupied. 

“Ser Jaime, will you see me to my chambers?” Sansa asked. 

He would have been happy to comply, had Jon not snapped his attention back to the present, dark eyes narrowing. “Is that really necessary?”

“No, but I do enjoy his company,” Sansa replied, voice taking on a distinctly dangerous tone. Again, Jaime recognized the beginnings of a sibling brawl and decided that silence was the better part of valour. Ser Davos raised a bushy brow, and hastily excused himself.

“It’s a little unseemly for an unmarried maid…” Jon started. 

“Unmarried maid? Jon, I’m a widow! I’ve been married not once, but twice!” Sansa exclaimed. Her brother had the grace to look embarrassed, but still, he soldiered on.

“Are you planning to marry Jaime then? Bear some Lannister brats?” he asked. “I’m not blind - I can see what’s happening between the two of you.”

“Jon!” Sansa hissed, her face flushed in embarrassment. Even Jaime flinched as though he had been struck.

“I don’t suppose Jaime Lannister himself gets a say?” the man in question asked mildly, hiding his resentment at being spoken of as if he were not standing right there before them. The murderous looks the Stark children threw at him answered that question.

“Jon, the time is past for anyone to tell me whom I should be wed to, and when.” Sansa said, her voice suddenly cold. “You are my brother and my only family. But I will not be told. Not even by you.”

The man looked as if he were about to argue further, but something in her expression warned him to stay his words. Rising to his feet, he bowed stiffly before turning to leave the hall. Immediately, Sansa looked as if she regretted herself. 

“I appreciate that you want to protect me.” Sansa called softly. “I do. But I mean it…I won’t be married off on anyone else’s wishes…not ever again.”

“Aye.” Jon relented, turning to her with a small smile. “And I pity the next person that tried. They’d have me to deal with, if it comes to that.”

Brother and sister smiled at each other, as an understanding was reached.

***

In her chambers, once her door was closed, Jaime stood in the middle of the room, for the first time unsure of where he stood when it came to Sansa. 

“What Jon said…” Sansa stared into the flames of her large hearth. “It wasn’t his place.”

When he said nothing, the woman looked over at him nervously, her hands wringing. Slowly, she walked close to him, and placed a trembling palm at his breast. “Jaime, I…”

“I understand.” he said, stepping away. He didn’t think he could smile at her reassuringly just then; he did not have it in him to give her succour. “Things have changed. You are the Queen in the North, and it would be unseemly for us to…”

“What?” she sounded confused, and a little annoyed. “No, you misunderstand me ser.” 

“Do I?” he asked, unable to keep the bitterness from seeping in. “I understand that Queens have sacred duties, including the need for her King to get heirs on her.”

It was unfair of him; he knew it even as he said it, that it wasn’t Sansa he was raging at.

“Gods. You and Jon. You’re both obsessed with marrying me off aren’t you?” her anger becoming apparent. “Have either of you considered what I want?”

“What is it you want Your Grace?” he snarled.

“You!” Sansa growled in frustration. “You’re the only man I’ve ever truly wanted.”

As soon as the words were out her mouth, Jaime closed the space between them, pulling her into a searing kiss. 

“The thought of you with another…” he breathed as their faces parted. “Sansa, I don’t think I could bear it. Not again.” 

She nodded, understanding in her eyes. _She knew_ , Jaime realized with a jolt of unpleasant shock. She knew of the affliction he shared with Cersei. 

In the flurry of the past weeks, it had been so easy to forget what it meant, that Sansa had spent so much of her youth in the court of King’s Landing, where whispers filled every shadow. It was easy even now, to forget that for a short time, the Queen in the North had herself been a _Lannister_ \- and all that the association implied. This woman had shared with his brother, a chamber, if not a bed. His brother, who favoured the bottle, who loved his words, and who had no real affection for his family. 

__

__

“Jaime, just because I don’t want to marry you on the morrow…”

“Don’t.” he said sharply, suddenly realizing the edge of the precipice on which they were teetering. How many times had Cersei professed her undying devotion, her boundless love…her promises that had she the choice of any man in the world, it would always be him. In return, he had cast a blind eye to the fact that he would never even come close to the power she truly desired, above all else.

“Don’t…” he repeated brokenly. 

It was Sansa who bridged the gap this time. Sansa who reached up and tugged him down towards her determinedly. He fumbled clumsily at the ties that held her dress together, suddenly desperate to claim her body once again. 

“Jaime…” she gasped even as he pushed the dress off of her. “I lo…”

“Please…not now.” he begged, mouthing at her neck as he pushed her back towards her bed. He knew what she meant to speak. He wasn’t ready to hear it, wasn’t ready to face it. 

As the back of her knees collapsed against the edge of her bed, she gasped loudly, trembled too violently in a way that told him he was pushing too hard. Still, she did not tell him to stop. The way she looked at him was as if she meant to prove the words he wouldn’t let her speak with only her body, even if it killed her.

_My brave, beautiful girl._

Cursing himself silently, he fell to his knees before her, and kissed his way downwards of her belly, slow and sure. Hands, both real and gold, pushed her thighs apart gently. As his breath brushed her core, she shuddered against his cheeks and released the softest of moans. 

“Jaime…” she uttered in a breathless sigh.

His mouth tasted her, cherished her slowly, endlessly caressed her. As her hips began to thrust in an uneven rhythm against him, he fumbled at his own breeches with his living hand, pulling out his cock, already hard with desire for her. 

“I need you…” she gasped, her long fingers in his hair. “Please…Jaime…”

Her words spurred his body to cover hers. Entering her swiftly, as one, they gasped in pleasure. 

Sansa arched her hips in a futile attempt to find the release he had wordlessly promised thus far. Smirking down at her, he leaned down, brushing his lips against her ear. 

“Not yet my sweet girl…not until I say.” 

Her eyes slid shut, even as he began very slowly, to move inside her, expertly pulling the moans from her chest.

***

The Queen lay in his arms, sleeping the sleep of the innocent. To look at her, one would never have guessed that she had ordered the brutal deaths of two men only hours before.

 _Not_ , a little voice said, _that anyone else would ever get to see her this way._

He had no choice but to place his trust in her, he realized as his eyes took in the sharp contours of her face. This was the woman for whom he had taken oaths, not once, but three times. Once to her mother, once in the forest, and once in front of her countrymen.

Truly, there was no other way. He had not the time or luxury to pretend that he would not fight with everything he had to protect the woman in his arms, he thought. Outside, dawn was already beginning to streak across the dark sky. 

This peace they had forged - it was not permanent. The battle might have been won, but war was closing in upon them. One way or another, as sure as Winter was coming, the bloodshed was far from over. 

In his arms, Sansa stirred, muttering to herself in panicked tremors. In response, Jaime drew her closer, running his hands over her scarred back until she stopped struggling against unseen horrors. 

Blue eyes fluttered open, meeting his steady gaze.

“Good morning,” she murmured.

“Good morning…” he responded softly. “Good morning my love.”

The answer in her eyes, the joy in her smile, he thought, was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

 _Yes_ , he swore to himself as he leaned into her soft embrace once more. _He would give his all to protect what he held dear._

**The End.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There, my secret plot is revealed: this was actually all about making Sansa Queen. And some Jaime/Sansa action, obviously.
> 
> Also I apologize for the death scene which looks plagiarized (because it is but hey fanfiction!)
> 
> Also, the ending doesn't satisfy me. I'll probably write those damned one shots to give this ridiculous story better closure. (# weirdlybummedout)


End file.
